To provide a very basic example:
Column 1 | Column 2
AN-K10LP / BQC-XVZ100001
AN-K10LP / BQC-XVZ100001
Whatever
AN-K10LP / BQC-XVZ100001
Whatever
Whatever
BQC-XVZ100001 / AN-K10LP
AN-K10LP / BQC-XVZ100001
So does any part of B1 (AN-K10LP / BQC-XVZ100001) exist in the range of column B? And if so, enter in the value of B1 in A1. This would need to be dynamic to where I could drag the formula down and find all of them.
I’m looking for semi-matching cells. They will usually contain the same value, just switched around like that. Or just contain a portion of it. And I need to merge all of them to take the same value.
How many different strings are you looking for in total? If it’s only a small number and/or you have a complete list somewhere already, and you don’t need to be able to deal with typos, you could perhaps put together a set of formulas using the FIND function.
If you do need to be able to deal with typos, this is a lot harder – you’d need to using something like Hamming Distance to try and guess what people meant to type.