Symbol for "DOES NOT CONTAIN" in a formula

[Kirstym1918]

Hi everyone,

I am using the formula below on conditional formatting which looks up the staff name (R5), Matches it with the data in BD5:BD150 and if the adjacent cell (BE5:BE150) does not contain W then it highlights for me.

=VLOOKUP(R5,$BD$5:$BE$150,2,0)<>"W"

My problem is that I have three different variants of W I would like it to consider, Which are "W", "W 5th", "W 6th"

How do I get this formula to highlight if the cell "does not begin with W" or if the BE range does not contain a W.

I've tried wildcard* and it highlights things that shouldn't be highlight so I'm confused as to why.

Is there a symbol to use for does not contain, similar to the <> not equal to

Many Thanks

 

[mole999]

maybe Left(cell,1) <> "W" or something like that