by Comparing columns in Excel is something that we all do once in a while. Microsoft Excel offers a number of options to compare and match data, but most of them focus on searching in one column. In this tutorial, we will explore several techniques to compare two columns in Excel and find matches and differences between them.
How to compare 2 columns in Excel row-by-row
When you do data analysis in Excel, one of the most frequent tasks is comparing data in each individual row. This task can be done by using the IF function, as demonstrated in the following examples.
Example 1. Compare two columns for matches or differences in the same row
To compare two columns in Excel row-by-row, write a usual IF formula that compares the first two cells. Enter the formula in some other column in the same row, and then copy it down to other cells by dragging the fill handle (a small square in the bottom-right corner of the selected cell). As you do this, the cursor changes to the plus sign:
To find cells within the same row having the same content, A2 and B2 in this example, the formula is as follows: To find cells in the same row with different values, simply replace the equals sign with the non-equality sign (<>): And of course, nothing prevents you from finding both matches and differences with a single formula: Or The result may look similar to this:
As you see, the formula handles numbers, dates, times and text strings equally well. Tip. You can also compare two columns row-by-row using Excel Advanced Filter. Here is an example showing how to filter matches and differences between 2 columns.
Formula for matches
=IF(A2=B2,"Match","")
Formula for differences
=IF(A2<>B2,"No match","")
Matches and differences
=IF(A2=B2,"Match","No match")=IF(A2<>B2,"No match","Match")
Example 2. Compare two lists for case-sensitive matches in the same row
As you have probably noticed, the formulas from the previous example ignore case when comparing text values, as in row 10 in the screenshot above. If you want to find case-sensitive matches between 2 columns in each row, then use the EXACT function:
=IF(EXACT(A2, B2), "Match", "")
To find case-sensitive differences in the same row, enter the corresponding text ("Unique" in this example) in the 3rd argument of the IF function, e.g.:
=IF(EXACT(A2, B2), "Match", "Unique")
Compare multiple columns for matches in the same row
In your Excel worksheets, multiple columns can be compared based on the following criteria:
- Find rows with the same values in all columns (Example 1)
- Find rows with the same values in any 2 columns (Example 2)
Example 1. Find matches in all cells within the same row
If your table has three or more columns and you want to find rows that have the same values in all cells, an IF formula with an AND statement will work a treat:
=IF(AND(A2=B2, A2=C2), "Full match", "")
If your table has a lot of columns, a more elegant solution would be using the COUNTIF function:
=IF(COUNTIF($A2:$E2, $A2)=5, "Full match", "")
Where 5 is the number of columns you are comparing.
Example 2. Find matches in any two cells in the same row
If you are looking for a way to compare columns for any two or more cells with the same values within the same row, use an IF formula with an OR statement:
=IF(OR(A2=B2, B2=C2, A2=C2), "Match", "")
In case there are many columns to compare, your OR statement may grow too big in size. In this case, a better solution would be adding up several COUNTIF functions. The first COUNTIF counts how many columns have the same value as in the 1st column, the second COUNTIF counts how many of the remaining columns are equal to the 2nd column, and so on. If the count is 0, the formula returns "Unique", "Match" otherwise. For example:
=IF(COUNTIF(B2:D2,A2)+COUNTIF(C2:D2,B2)+(C2=D2)=0,"Unique","Match")
How to compare two columns in Excel for matches and differences
Suppose you have 2 lists of data in Excel, and you want to find all values (numbers, dates or text strings) which are in column A but not in column B.
For this, you can embed the COUNTIF($B:$B, $A2)=0 function in IF's logical test and check if it returns zero (no match is found) or any other number (at least 1 match is found).
For instance, the following IF/COUNTIF formula searches across the entire column B for the value in cell A2. If no match is found, the formula returns "No match in B", an empty string otherwise:
=IF(COUNTIF($B:$B, $A2)=0, "No match in B", "")
Tip. If your table has a fixed number of rows, you can specify a certain range (e.g. $B2:$B10) rather than the entire column ($B:$B) for the formula to work faster on large data sets.
The same result can be achieved by using an IF formula with the embedded ISERROR and MATCH functions:
=IF(ISERROR(MATCH($A2,$B$2:$B$10,0)),"No match in B","")
Or, by using the following array formula (remember to press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to enter it correctly):
=IF(SUM(--($B$2:$B$10=$A2))=0, " No match in B", "")
If you want a single formula to identify both matches (duplicates) and differences (unique values), put some text for matches in the empty double quotes ("") in any of the above formulas. For example:
=IF(COUNTIF($B:$B, $A2)=0, "No match in B", "Match in B")
How to compare two lists in Excel and pull matches
Sometimes you may need not only match two columns in two different tables, but also pull matching entries from the lookup table. Microsoft Excel provides a special function for this - the VLOOKUP function. As an alternative, you can use a more powerful and versatile INDEX MATCH formula. The users of Excel 2021 and Excel 365, can accomplish the task with the XLOOKUP function.
For example, the following formulas compare the product names in columns D against the names in column A and pull a corresponding sales figure from column B if a match is found, otherwise the #N/A error is returned.
=VLOOKUP(D2, $A$2:$B$6, 2, FALSE)
=INDEX($B$2:$B$6, MATCH($D2, $A$2:$A$6, 0))
=XLOOKUP(D2, $A$2:$A$6, $B$2:$B$6)
For more information, please see How to compare two columns using VLOOKUP.
If you don't feel very comfortable with formulas, you can have the job done using a fast and intuitive solution - Merge Tables Wizard.
Compare two lists and highlight matches and differences
When you compare columns in Excel, you may want to "visualize" the items that are present in one column but missing in the other. You can shade such cells in any color of your choosing by using the Excel Conditional Formatting feature and the following examples demonstrate the detailed steps.
Example 1. Highlight matches and differences in each row
To compare two columns and Excel and highlight cells in column A that have identical entries in column B in the same row, do the following:
- Select the cells you want to highlight (you can select cells within one column or in several columns if you want to color entire rows).
- Click Conditional formatting > New Rule… > Use a formula to determine which cells to format.
- Create a rule with a simple formula like
=$B2=$A2(assuming that row 2 is the first row with data, not including the column header). Please double check that you use a relative row reference (without the $ sign) like in the formula above.
To highlight differences between column A and B, create a rule with this formula:
=$B2<>$A2
If you are new to Excel conditional formatting, please see How to create a formula-based conditional formatting rule for step-by-step instructions.
Example 2. Highlight unique entries in each list
Whenever you are comparing two lists in Excel, there are 3 item types that you can highlight:
- Items that are only in the 1st list (unique)
- Items that are only in the 2nd list (unique)
- Items that are in both lists (duplicates) - demonstrated in the next example.
This example demonstrates how to color the items that are only in one list.
Supposing your List 1 is in column A (A2:A6) and List 2 in column C (C2:C5). You create the conditional formatting rules with the following formulas:
Highlight unique values in List 1 (column A):
=COUNTIF($C$2:$C$5, $A2)=0
Highlight unique values in List 2 (column C):
=COUNTIF($A$2:$A$6, $C2)=0
And get the following result:
Example 3. Highlight matches (duplicates) between 2 columns
If you closely followed the previous example, you won't have difficulties adjusting the COUNTIF formulas so that they find the matches rather than differences. All you have to do is to set the count greater than zero:
Highlight matches in List 1 (column A):
=COUNTIF($C$2:$C$5, $A2)>0
Highlight matches in List 2 (column C):
=COUNTIF($A$2:$A$6, $C2)>0
Highlight row differences and matches in multiple columns
When comparing values in several columns row-by-row, the quickest way to highlight matches is creating a conditional formatting rule, and the fastest way to shade differences is embracing the Go To Special feature, as demonstrated in the following examples.
Example 1. Compare multiple columns and highlight row matches
To highlight rows that have identical values in all columns, create a conditional formatting rule based on one of the following formulas:
=AND($A2=$B2, $A2=$C2)
or
=COUNTIF($A2:$C2, $A2)=3
Where A2, B2 and C2 are the top-most cells and 3 is the number of columns to compare.
Of course, neither AND nor COUNTIF formula is limited to comparing only 3 columns, you can use similar formulas to highlight rows with the same values in 4, 5, 6 or more columns.
Example 2. Compare multiple columns and highlight row differences
To quickly highlight cells with different values in each individual row, you can use Excel's Go To Special feature.
- Select the range of cells you want to compare. In this example, I've selected cells A2 to C8.
By default, the top-most cell of the selected range is the active cell, and the cells from the other selected columns in the same row will be compared to that cell. As you can see in the screenshot above, the active cell is white while all other cells of the selected range are highlighted. In this example, the active cell is A2, so the comparison column is column A.
To change the comparison column, use either the Tab key to navigate through selected cells from left to right, or the Enter key to move from top to bottom.
Tip. To select non-adjacent columns, select the first column, press and hold Ctrl, and then select the other columns. The active cell will be in the last column (or in the last block of adjacent columns). To change the comparison column, use the Tab or Enter key as described above.
- On the Home tab, go to Editing group, and click Find & Select > Go To Special… Then select Row differences and click the OK button.
- The cells whose values are different from the comparison cell in each row are colored. If you want to shade the highlighted cells in some color, simply click the Fill Color icon on the ribbon and select the color of your choosing.
How to compare two cells in Excel
In fact, comparing 2 cells is a particular case of comparing two columns in Excel row-by-row except that you don't have to copy the formulas down to other cells in the column.
For example, to compare cells A1 and C1, you can use the following formulas.
For matches:
=IF(A1=C1, "Match", "")
For differences:
=IF(A1<>C1, "Difference", "")
To learn a few other ways to compare cells in Excel, please see:
Formula-free way to compare two columns / lists in Excel
Now that you know Excel's offerings for comparing and matching columns, let me show you our own solution for this task. This tool is named Compare Two Tables and it is included in our Ultimate Suite.
The add-in can compare two tables or lists by any number of columns and both identify matches/differences (as we did with formulas) and highlight them (as we did with conditional formatting).
For the purpose of this article, we'll be comparing the following 2 lists to find common values that are present in both.
To compare two lists, here are the steps you need to follow:
- Start with clicking the Compare Tables button on the Ablebits Data tab.
- Select the first column/list and click Next. In terms of the add-in, this is your Table 1.
- Select the second column/list and click Next. In terms of the add-in, it is your Table 2, and it can reside in the same or different worksheet or even in another workbook.
- Choose what kind of data to look for:
- Duplicate values (matches) - the items that exist in both lists.
- Unique values (differences) - the items that are present in list 1, but not in list 2.
Since our aim is to find matches, we select the first option and click Next.
- This is the key step where you select the columns for comparison. In our case, the choice is obvious as we are only comparing 2 columns: 2000 Winners against 2021 Winners. In bigger tables, you can select several column pairs to compare by.
- In the final step, you choose how to deal with the found items and click Finish.
A few different options are available here. For our purposes, these two are most useful:
- Highlight with color - shades matches or differences in the selected color (like Excel conditional formatting does).
- Identify in the Status column - inserts the Status column with the "Duplicate" or "Unique" labels (like IF formulas do).
For this example, I've decided to highlight duplicates in the following color:
And in a moment, got the following result:
With the Status column, the result would look as follows:
Tip. If the lists you are comparing are in different worksheets or workbooks, it might be helpful to view Excel sheets side by side.
This is how you compare columns in Excel for matches (duplicates) and differences (unique values). If you are interested to try this tool, you are welcome to download an evaluation version using the below link.
I thank you for reading and encourage you to check out other helpful tutorials that we have :)
Available downloads
Compare Excel Lists - examples (.xlsx file)
Ultimate Suite - trial version (.exe file)
550 comments
# Name TYPE
abcd Abbott Nails
abcde Cost Comedy
baco Lion Mane
zhty Bear Paw
zhty Bear Paw
The above is a simplified version of my data however there are numerous rows and columns but overall I would like to identify unique values across columns and rows simultaneously by documenting it with a 1 as unique or a 0 as it occurred in previous rows across columns.
# Name TYPE Nails Comedy Mane Paw
abcd Abbott Nails 1 0 0 0
abcde Cost Comedy 0 1 0 0
abcde Cost Comedy 0 0 0 0
baco Lion Mane 0 1 0 0
baco Lion Mane 0 0 0 0
zhty Bear Paw 0 0 0 1
zhty Lion Mane 0 0 1 1
Thanks for tutorial. The comparing can be done with Excel Vba Codes .The compare process can be made with Excel Vba Worksheet.Countif Function .
Two columns in different worksheets were compared in this template .Found different results as entire row were copied to second worksheet .
Codes :
"Dim stk, msb As Worksheet
Set stk = Sheets("Page1")
Set msb = Sheets("Page2")
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
sat = (msb.Range("A" & Rows.Count).End(xlUp).Row) + 1
For i = 2 To stk.Range("A" & Rows.Count).End(xlUp).Row
If WorksheetFunction.CountIf(msb.Range("A2:A" & msb.Range("A" & Rows.Count).End(xlUp).Row), stk.Cells(i, "A")) = 0 Then
msb.Range("a" & sat).EntireRow.Value = stk.Range("a" & i).EntireRow.Value
msb.Range("a" & sat).Interior.ColorIndex = 22
sat = sat + 1
End If
Next
...
"
Template at :http://goo.gl/ZeOwa2
Hi,
your description is actually very clear and helpful,thanks a lot. But with my data set it didn´t work for some reason. I want to compare two columns with gene names to find genes which are in column A and in column B, so i tried your example "Example 3. Highlight matches (duplicates) between 2 columns" respectively "Example 2. Highlight unique entries in each list", but unfortunately no cells were marked although there are duplicates. Do you have any idea why this happened?
Thanks a lot!!
I've been using a column compare macro which gives me the data (which is there in column A but not in column b) into column C AND the data (which is there column B but not in column A) into column D. I'm trying to find out the formula used to make this macro.
Thanks!
kindly help me to assign the remarks of attendence as excellent, good or bad based on the student attendence. It will be mentioned in range as 95-99 as Excellent,90-94 as good, 85-89 as average and like.
kindly reply
Hi Manoj,
You need nested IF functions for this. For example:
=IF(A2>=95, "Excellent", IF(A2>=90, "Good", IF(A2>=85, "Average", "Poor ")))
I have a spreadsheet that needs to be alpha dominant where column A is a lower alpha character and column B wants to be a higher alpha character relative to column A.
An example of this is.
Column A Column B
ABC DEF
However, if the columns A and B values are flipped where it is not the correct output such as will be incorrect.
Column A Column B
DEF ABC
I need a formula to weed out the lower alpha to higher alpha issue on a spreadsheet with thousands of rows.
Thanks
I read this article and its great but I haven't found solution to my problem.
I need to compare every to cells in a column that belongs to same object in 2 rows.
I mean for each object (out of many objects) I have 2 rows and multiple columns and for every each of this columns I need to compare every 2 cells (that are one row after another) to see if the data is the same, if not then I need to highlight the 2 cells.
I hope someone can understand me and answer me. I need some condition or maybe to write a command in Macro.
I have large amount of data,
Example
COL-A " PIPE SEAMLESS API 5L Gr. B PSL2 NACE+HIC 3/4"(20 MM) SCH 80 PLAIN END ASME B36.10M "
COL B- " PIPE SEAMLESS API 5L GR B PSL2 NACE + HIC 0.75 SCH 80 PLAIN END ASME B36.10M "
I want to find the difference in content of cell,
e.g in example difference between COL-A & COL-B is {3/4"(20 MM) & 0.75}
Can anyone help?
Hi,
I have 1 spreadsheet with 4 separete text tables. Each table contains a code on the first column and a description on the second.
How can I highlight the mtaching letters sequence or identical words on the second column (description) of two considered tables?
I have 2 excel worksheets. 1st sheet contain 900 names with details in 9 columns.
2nd sheet is with 600 names (which are available in above 900) but with different details in 6 columns.
I want to merge the details of 2nd list of 600 with those details of 600 available in the 900 name list.
How to do this.
Hi I have beeen stuck in a problem I have data with mulipt column with simlier values but different lenght =INDEX($B$2:$B$6,MATCH($D2,$A$2:$A$6,0))
but problem is i have four columns withe common values in one two or three oe all four like your banan expmale so i want to extract the rspective values for common values in multiple columns how it will work tell me please or some other method
Its very good site, which is useful and saved my one week manual effort.
Regards,
Satish
I've been searching for a solution to this, but have so far haven't found an answer.
In a soccer league consisting of several matches there are a number of two differing outcomes to a specific criteria.
Here's a summary:
League and Result
ASIA: East Asian Championship Won
ASIA: East Asian Championship Lost
ASIA: East Asian Championship Women Lost
ASIA: East Asian Championship Women Won
AUSTRALIA: Brisbane Premier League Won
AUSTRALIA: Brisbane Premier League Lost
AUSTRALIA: Brisbane Premier League Won
AUSTRALIA: Brisbane Premier League Lost
AUSTRALIA: Brisbane Premier League Lost
AUSTRALIA: Brisbane Premier League Won
AUSTRALIA: Capital Territory Won
AUSTRALIA: Capital Territory Won
AUSTRALIA: Capital Territory Won
AUSTRALIA: Capital Territory Won
AUSTRALIA: Northern NSW Lost
AUSTRALIA: Northern NSW Won
AUSTRALIA: Northern NSW Lost
AUSTRALIA: Northern NSW Won
AUSTRALIA: Northern NSW Lost
AUSTRALIA: Northern NSW Won
AUSTRALIA: Northern NSW Lost
AUSTRALIA: Northern NSW Lost
What I want to do is create a report that lists each league and counts the number of Wins and Losses in each:
League Criteria
ASIA: East Asian Championship Won 1
ASIA: East Asian Championship Lost 1
ASIA: East Asian Championship Women Lost 1
ASIA: East Asian Championship Women Won 1
AUSTRALIA: Brisbane Premier League Won 3
AUSTRALIA: Brisbane Premier League Lost 3
AUSTRALIA: Capital Territory Won 4
AUSTRALIA: Northern NSW Lost 5
AUSTRALIA: Northern NSW Won 3
I've looked at Pivots, and that goes some of the way there. But I can't figure out how to count the number of wins and losses in each of the leagues.
Many thanks :)
row to row cheque the same the
numbar
hi....
I need a help to compare two sheets but it should compare the entire row only if there first column matches.
for example:
Sheet1
Row ID Order ID
32298 CA-2012-124891
26341 IN-2013-77878
25330 IN-2013-71249
13524 ES-2013-1579342
Sheet2
Row ID Order ID
32298 CA-2012-124891
26341 IN-2013-77878
25330 IN-2013-71249
here suppose row number 2,4,6 are blank or u can say contains other data. But need to compare row only when rowID matches...
32298==32298 but they are in different row numbers
Sorry, that earlier post was accident :)
Hi!
How can I make Excel sheet which compares Game result to my quess? And then I get points depends how good was my quess.
Here is small Example
Result My quess Points
0-1 0-2 4 winner right and one value right
1-1 1-1 10 Both values right = 10 points
1-1 2-1 0,5 One value right
1-2 0-3 3 Winner right, both values wrong
0-0 1-2 0 Both values wrong
Thanks very informative content
Hi can someone help me how i can compare two sheets columns and that compared cells has to be seen in other sheet. i consider it will very great i mean it may more visible
Hi, I need to show in a cell the number of rows that have value in any of the cells in it and give me the column titles.
example CFGA
3
because: there were three rows in the celection that had value only in columns CF and GA out of celected 4 columns.
Will greatly appreciate it.
Hi.. I would like to compare 2 different spread sheet data in excel. each spread sheet contains 15 columns and 1000 records. I would like to write a formula to know whether the spread sheet one data is matching with all the columns of spread sheet two or is there any change in each column. please let me know.