Where to put the *wildcard*

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Are you struggling with your current formula's rigidity and yearning for more flexibility? You’re not alone; many users face challenges when their spreadsheets can't recognize partial matches. By incorporating wildcards into your formula, you can enable it to detect these partial matches across your specified ranges. This adjustment allows for a broader search capability, transforming your approach to data validation. Dive into the details below to discover how to seamlessly integrate wildcards into your existing formula and enhance your spreadsheet's functionality.

I know this is starting to make my formula complicated, but hear me out. This is it in it's current iteration:

=IF(COUNTIFS($A$2:$A$10,A2,$B$2:$B$10,B2,$C$2:$C10,C2)>1,"CONFLICT"," ")

So far, this means if anything in the range of A2-A10 matches A2, B2-B10 matches B2 AND C2-C10 matches C2 exactly, without counting Row 2, return CONFLICT if true and a space if false.

I want it to be able to recognise partial matches in columns rather than exact matches. I feel like this should be possible with wildcards, but I don't know where it should go, or how to input it. I also can't specify what it should search, just to detect if there's a partial match between rown.

Eg, A2 is 1, B2 is Z, C2 is A; B; C A2 is 1, B2 is Z, C7 is B

The formula as it is doesn't view this as true because it's not an exact match. I want it to return true due to the partial 'B' match.

Is this possible? Am I thinking about it the wrong way?

submitted by /u/Rodeohead12
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Where to put the wildcard

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