Finding Duplicate Characters

[mballard5574]

I have a list of company names I am trying to find duplicates. However, some names may be entered differently. Example: ABC Sports --- ABC Core Sports.

Is there a way to find duplicates based on the first 5 or 6 text characters of a cell...not the entire cell?

Thanks< MIKE

[brokenbiscuits]

=countif(A:A,left(A1,5)&"*")
would count how many names in the list start with the same 5 characters.

Although in the case you mention above, it still wouldn't match as only the first 4 characters would match.

[mballard5574]

How do I identify which cells are the duplicates? And is there any way for it to search the "first 5 characters" instead of 5 characters all together?

[brokenbiscuits]

How do I identify which cells are the duplicates?

If you put this formula into your top row and drag it down, anything greater than 1 would be a duplicate.

That said, that doesn't guarantee it's a duplicate. Maybe a better solution would be:

=IF(COUNTIF(A:A,LEFT(A1,5)&"*")>1,INDEX(A:A,MATCH(LEFT(A1,5)&"*",A:A,0),1))

This would find the closest match and show it. You could then filter the match column to check if they were indeed matches.

And is there any way for it to search the "first 5 characters" instead of 5 characters all together?

I'm not really sure what you mean by this.