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Searching for a File using Wildcard Characters
Do you know we can find a file on the computer even if we don’t know its location or complete
name? We can use wildcard characters to search for these kinds of files. A wildcard is a
special character that is used to represent one or more characters. Generally, two wildcard
characters are commonly used for searching files in a system. These are the asterisk(*) and
question mark (?).
Searching for Files using Asterisk (*)
The asterisk (*) is used to replace multiple or none characters in search. It’s useful when you
want to search for files that share a common part of their name but may have different endings.
For example, searching for 'pro' will find files or folders like 'program', 'properties', 'project' or
'process'.
To use the asterisk for searching files on your computer, follow these steps:
Step 1: Open the File Explorer and type 'pro*' in the search box.
Step 2: The File Explorer displays the files and folders that contains the word 'pro'.
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Step 3: To narrow the search mention the type of file, type ‘pro*.txt’.
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Fundamentals of Computer 23

