Excel formula to replace or stubstitute only text that starts with a certain letter

Question

Prior
Rlet
Rcall
Resolved

So I want Excel to find and replace all words starting with "R" in a certain column and change them all to "Resolved". It seems like a simple substitute or replacement, but I can't seem to get it to work with only words starting with "R". 

Answer 1

You're requesting a "formula." Normally, you would enter that into a cell. In such a situation, you might enter the following formula in cell B1 if you have the list of terms in the A column:

=IF(LEFT(A1, 1)="R", "Resolved", A1)

If the first letter in A1 is A, "Resolved" will be added to B1, otherwise, A1 will be copied.
Now that column A is hidden, you can copy this equation down by double-clicking the tiny square in the bottom right corner of the cell. You might also copy column B in its whole, "paste special... Values only," onto column A, then remove column A.