Locating Words With Specific Letters in a Column

dcofer

Board Regular
Joined
Jun 25, 2004
Messages
203
Hello all,

Thanks in advance for your help. I have about 2500 five letter words in Column A. I want to find a quick way to find every word in the column that contain two or more specific letters. For example, I want to get a list or perhaps have Excel highlight every word in the column that has both a U and a R, or perhaps every word that contains an H, E, and a D. Those are just examples. It does not matter if Excel just highlights the words in the column that match the criteria or if it posts the list of words in a separate column. If I am only looking for all the words with one letter I can use Control F to find the words that contain that letter, but I don't know how to search for all words with two or more letters. (No VBA solutions, please as I am not fluent in VBA).

Thanks again for any assistance.

David
 

Excel Facts

Which Excel functions can ignore hidden rows?
The SUBTOTAL and AGGREGATE functions ignore hidden rows. AGGREGATE can also exclude error cells and more.
If you have MSO365, try:

Excel Formula:
=LET(a,A1:A2500,FILTER(a,ISNUMBER(SEARCH("U",a))*ISNUMBER(SEARCH("R",a))))


-----
Other option with conditional formating:

Dante Amor
A
1asdfu
2rdfua
3sdfu
4xxxxx
5dfurj
6rjuar
7sukrl
Hoja4
Cells with Conditional Formatting
CellConditionCell FormatStop If True
A1:A2500Expression=AND(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("U",A1)),ISNUMBER(SEARCH("R",A1)))textNO
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
Other way with conditional formatting:
In cell C2 write the letters you need. The words in column A will be highlighted.

Dante Amor
ABC
1Letters
2asdfuHDE
3aHDEc
4sdfue
5EsDxH
6dfurj
7rjuar
8sukrl
9aaaaa
10
Hoja4
Cells with Conditional Formatting
CellConditionCell FormatStop If True
A2:A2500Expression=SUM(--ISNUMBER(SEARCH(MID(A2,ROW($1:$5),1),$C$2)))=LEN($C$2)textNO



😇
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
Solution
Yes, 6 string, doing a Wordle solver spreadsheet. I have downloaded the words in column A and split the individual letters over columns B through F. I use filters to eliminate letters in columns B through F. But sometimes I know two or three letters in the word, but not the position. I can manually do a Ctr+F in Column A to find one letter I am looking for, but am looking for a solution to find multiple letters at the same time. Since I started using the spreadsheet, I have a streak of 181 days. I typically solve the puzzle in 4 guesses at the most, and often in three guesses. I have never needed more than 5 guesses.
 
Upvote 0
DanteAmor, Thanks for your suggestions. I have not had a chance to try them yet, but it does look like it will do what I need. Thanks again!
 
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