Auto filter with multiple wildcards

Question

Is there a way to use an Excel auto filter, whereby you set a predefined list of values to filter by, and it will return all the cells in a column that contain that phrase? For

Answer 1

The second method doesn't work because if you are using wildcards in an array to autofilter you are limited to only 2 terms. There are workarounds and solutions on the web.

Answer 2

You cannot filter more than two criteria with wildcards. The nature of your sample data is such that you would be using ="Brian*", ="Mark*" or ="*John" to wildcard the first names as either Begins with... or Ends with... criteria. You can only use two of these in any one filter operation. You cannot add a third by creating an array of wildcarded values.

This works:

with activesheet.cells(1, 1).currentregion
    .AutoFilter Field:=1, Criteria1:="=Brian*", Operator:=xlOr, Criteria2:="=*John"
end with

This does not work:

with activesheet.cells(1, 1).currentregion
    .AutoFilter Field:=1, Criteria1:=Array("Brian*", "Mark*", "*John"), Operator:=xlFilterValues
end with