How to compare the contents of 2 columns with Excel?
- Write a VLOOKUP functions
The VLOOKUP function will help you to find the missing values
- Use the ISNA function
This function will help to convert the previous result as a test
- Write an IF function
This function will be useful to customize the final result
Logic to Compare 2 columns in Excel
Comparing 2 columns in Excel is very easy. To solve this problem, we will use the VLOOKUP function.
The trick in this situation is to test if the VLOOKUP functions will returns N/A or not?
- If the value is missing, the VLOOKUP function will return N/A.
- Then, we will perform a test on the result N/A
Step 1: Write a VLOOKUP function
Let's start by writing a VLOOKUP function to find, or not, an item in the second column.
=VLOOKUP(A1,$D$1:$D$4,1,0)
- First, we want to find the value in A1 is in the second column
- Then, we will verify if this value is present in the column $D$1:$D$4 (do not forget the $ to lock the cell references)
- The third parameter = 1 because we have selected only one column in the second argument.
- And last parameter = 0 to perform an exact match.
- Then copy the formula down the column.
The missing value is immediately visible by the #N/A error value. NA means Not Applicable.
But it is not very visually appealing to display #N/A in your workbook 🙄🤨
Step 2: Use the ISNA function to perform a test
The ISNA function returns TRUE or FALSE
- TRUE: when the function VLOOKUP returns #N/A
- FALSE: when the function has matched
So, with this function, instead of returning N/A, we will return TRUE when the lookup failed.
=ISNA(VLOOKUP(A1,$D$1:$D$4,1,0))
Step 3: Finish with the IF function
Displaying TRUE or FALSE in the cells is not user-friendly. This is why we will integrate this test into an IF function to customize the result. We can write the following IF function:
=IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(A1,$D$1:$D$4,1,0)),"Missing","")
Change the color of the missing values
If you prefer to change the color, you can insert the logical test with ISNA into a custom rule in conditional formatting. Like that, all the missing values will be displayed with a custom color.
Tutorial video
In this video, you will turn up all the steps to compare two columns with Excel
Palani
09/09/2020 @ 13:49
This article is very helpful and saved a lot a time.. The article is pretty easy to follow. Looks like beginners can follow and achieve what they need.
Thanks for publishing such a good one.
21/02/2020 @ 00:20
It's so helpful. Thank you very much..!!
23/10/2019 @ 14:16
Thank you very much.
how to compare values with multiple columns; how do i put that formula, any help in this regard is highly appreciated
13/03/2019 @ 22:14
Beautiful. Did what I needed after a numerous searches. Thanks!
23/08/2018 @ 23:14
Thank you! It helped me a lot and made my work so much faster!
10/07/2018 @ 16:03
Awesome, this is going to make a lot of what I do much easier. Comes up a lot in IT where I have to match up two lists that match on a particular column, say computer hostnames, so I can pair information from the first list to info in the second list. Wish I'd known about this function years ago!