Home/ Questions/Q 7761241
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-06-01T14:05:11+00:00

I am trying to compare 2 columns for similarities. There are strings in columns

  • 0

I am trying to compare 2 columns for similarities.
There are strings in columns A and B and I want to display when a particular row of Col A matches the corresponding row in Col B. Note some of the rows in Col A might be empty.

So, basically this => if (A1==B1), C1 = TRUE

Here’s what I’ve tried so far:

=IF(ISERROR(MATCH(A1,B1:B1,0)),"",A1)

=EXACT(A1,B1)

=IF(A1=B1,"True",B1)

None of these give me a match for columns that contains the following data:

ColA ColB

Xanthomonas oryzae Xanthomonas oryzae

Would appreciate help with this. Thanks!

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Since @Carl’s answer does not work for you, the cell contents are not equal. Check for excess spaces or other non printing characters.

    Try these

    =CLEAN(A1)=CLEAN(B1)

    or

    =TRIM(A1)=TRIM(B1)

    or

    =TRIM(CLEAN(A1))=TRIM(CLEAN(B1))

    Trim will remove leading and trailing spaces, Clean will remove ascii characters 0 through 31. You may need a more elaborate formula depending on where the differences lie.

    • 0