Comparing a certain number of text in a different worksheet

**cur1an0707** · 06-07-2012, 02:15 AM

Hi Guys,

I'm practically new to excel formulas, I just want to make my life easier and found out that excel is the one i'm looking for, so here goes.

I have a certain number of companies in column A, sheet 1 that i would like to find in column A, sheet 2, here's the hard part. i would like to compare let's say the first 5 letters of every company rather than checking the exact text in the cell. is this doable? thanks

i have attached a sample

sample.xlsx

**mrice** · 06-07-2012, 03:53 AM

If your aim is to match up entries in the two lists then you might try the attached.

Column 1 is a copy of column 2 with common words (INC, LTD etc.) removed with the normal replace functionality. Run the macro TEST to populate column 4.

You will get a few false matches and you might need to remove extra common terms for column 1 to improve this.

**twiggywales** · 06-07-2012, 05:03 AM

the propblem with only searching 5 charicters is you may get an error as i have highlighted in red.

as for the you can do what i have done there

why did you only want to check 5 charicters?

sample (1).xlsx

i just noticed the ABBOT one is incorect to as it will return the first value that matches the 5 chars

you would be better to search the whole

as in

sample (1) (1).xlsx