Version? Did you try Advanced find?

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Outlook Tips: http://www.outlook-tips.net/
Outlook & Exchange Solutions Center: http://www.slipstick.com

Outlook Tips by email:
dailytips-subscribe-request@lists.outlooktips.net

EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
EMO-NEWSLETTER-SUBSCRIBE-REQUEST@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM

You can access this newsgroup by visiting
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx or point your
newsreader to msnews.microsoft.com.

"David Outlook Newbie" discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote in message news:0F173BB6-2E9B-4D6F-AE81-4E701BA552B3@microsoft.com...

"David Outlook Newbie" wrote:

Sorry - I just got Office 2007 which includes Outlook. And yes, I have
tried Advanced Find (control-shift-F) but with trial and errors I found
inconsistent behavior - for example, the system allows me to specify *234 but
it seems to treat ?234 the same way, and I haven't a way to specify a single
character wildcard (I thought "?" would be)...

Outlook doesn't support wildcards. Instant search doesn't do substrings -
it does leading searches. I think - is a delimiter (. and : are) , so it
will search for 234 substring but you can't search for "0-234" except using
Advanced find's Advanced tab.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Outlook Tips: http://www.outlook-tips.net/
Outlook & Exchange Solutions Center: http://www.slipstick.com

Outlook Tips by email:
dailytips-subscribe-request@lists.outlooktips.net

EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
EMO-NEWSLETTER-SUBSCRIBE-REQUEST@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM

You can access this newsgroup by visiting
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx or point your
newsreader to msnews.microsoft.com.

Thanks! Indeed the Advanced Find (in the Advanced tab) supports "contains"
queries where a substring like "07-186" works. Thanks again.

"Diane Poremsky [MVP]" wrote: