Look Who it Was Random video

Excel - Master the COUNTIF Function with Wildcards in Excel | Excel Tutorial - Episode 505

708 views · Published 9 September 2009 · 3:03 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: MrExcel.com · 2009 · Education

Watch on YouTube

Microsoft Excel Tutorial:  Master the COUNTIF Function with Wildcards in Excel | Excel Tutorial.

Welcome back to the MrExcel netcast! I'm Bill Jelen and I'm excited to share some new tips and tricks with you today. But first, I want to thank everyone who attended our data analyst boot camp last week in Frisco, Texas. We had a great turnout with 40 attendees and I had a blast answering all of your questions and sharing my knowledge with you.

In this episode, we're going to talk about the COUNTIF function and how to use wildcards to search for specific text within a column. But before we dive into that, I want to take a moment to congratulate the winners of our podcast #500 contest. If you want to see who won and what prizes they chose, head over to [email protected].

Now, let's get back to our topic for today. In a previous episode, I shared a convoluted solution for searching for a substring within a column. But thanks to the amazing MrExcel audience, I learned about a much simpler and more efficient way to do this using the COUNTIF function. Instead of creating extra columns and using complicated formulas, we can simply use wildcards within the COUNTIF function to search for any cells that contain a specific text.

But that's not all - someone also pointed out that this method works with the Autofilter feature as well. So not only can we use the COUNTIF function to find the desired text, but we can also filter our data to only show the records that contain that text. This is a game-changer for anyone working with large datasets and needing to quickly find specific information.

So there you have it - the COUNTIF function with wildcards is a much better and simpler way to search for substrings within a column of text. I hope you found this tip helpful and stay tuned for more useful Excel tips and tricks in future episodes. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time on the MrExcel netcast!

Buy Bill Jelen's latest Excel book: https://www.mrexcel.com/products/latest/

You can help my channel by clicking Like or commenting below: https://www.mrexcel.com/like-mrexcel-on-youtube/

Table of Contents:
(00:00) Introduction to MrExcel netcast
(00:15) Recap of data analyst boot camp in Frisco, Texas
(00:31) Announcement of podcast number 500 winners
(00:49) Correction to previous solution for searching for a substring
(01:15) Explanation of improved method using COUNTIF function
(02:35) Using COUNTIF with Autofilter for even easier searching
(02:45) Clicking Like really helps the algorithm

#excel #microsoft #microsoftexcel #exceltutorial #exceltips #exceltricks #excelmvp #freeclass #freecourse #freeclasses #excelclasses #microsoftmvp #walkthrough #evergreen #spreadsheetskills #analytics #analysis #dataanalysis #dataanalytics #mrexcel #spreadsheets #spreadsheet #excelhelp #accounting #tutorial

This video answers these common search terms:
Autofilter feature
Contest winners
Convolution solution
COUNTIF function
Data analyst boot camp
Frisco Texas
Looking for substrings in column of text
Podcast number 500
Prizes from Q and wholly macro books
Searching for substrings
Wildcards in COUNTIF

Join the MrExcel Message Board discussion about this video at https://www.mrexcel.com/board/threads/1152608/



Thanks to many viewers who wrote in after Episode 497, there is a much easier way to count the number of cells that contain a certain substring. In Episode 505, learn how to use the wildcard options in COUNTIF and AutoFilter.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!

More from this channel