I flip between Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel depending on what I am trying to do. So how about if you use Excel, can you compare columns using that tool? Well of course you can! Compare two columns in Microsoft Excel The site will compare the two panes and highlight any differences.ĭiffchecker is useful if you are trying to differentiate between columns and only need the results.Paste one set of text or values into the left pane and the other column or text into the right.It is even recommended for use on the Google Docs forum. It is called Diffchecker and seems to work well.
#Compare two columns in excel different sheets free#
If you don’t want the hassle of writing formulas or using an add-on and just want to quickly compare values or text between two documents, there is a free online tool that does the heavy lifting for you. You can choose to have it color in the duplicate or unique cells, to move or copy data to new columns, and other choices.Ī quick way to compare differences between text or spreadsheets
Note that you can compare multiple columns at a time, and even compare across different sheets! Enter the ranges of the columns you want to compare.Click the ‘Dedupe & Compare’ menu option then select ‘Compare two sheets’.Once Power Tools is added to your Google Sheets, go to the Add-Ons pull-down menu.Power Tools has many powerful functions, but we’ll just take a look at its method of column comparing here. This is a fairly advanced formula and I’m not going to get deep into the weeds on how it works, but it will allow us to do some multi-column data comparisons. Comparing multi-column dataĬomparing data between two columns is fine and useful…but what if you have multiple columns of data and need to do comparisons? Well, Sheets can handle that as well, using a function called ARRAYFORMULA. If you see a blank cell then the formula returned nothing indicating the columns match. Now for each row in which A and B are not identical, column C will contain the word “Mismatch”. This copies the formula in C1 into all the cells of column C. Left-click on the bottom right corner of cell C1 and drag downwards.The logic is this: if A1 and B1 are the same (i.e., A1=B1), the formula returns an empty string, and if they are not the same (A1 does not equal B1), the formula returns “Mismatch”. With data in columns A and B, highlight cell C1.Open your Sheet on the page that you want to compare.This is fairly easy to understand, but hard to read in the formula, so let’s step through it. The first argument is the test to be performed, the second argument is the result to return if the test is not true, and the third argument is the result to return if the test is true. In the IF statement, there are three arguments. Note: take a look at the third picture on this page to see that we swapped the last 2 arguments of the IF function.The IF formula is a powerful tool in Sheets (as well as in Excel). You can also display the unique values in the second column. Note: take a look at the second picture on this page to see that we swapped the last 2 arguments of the IF function.Ģ. Display the unique values in the first column (these values do not occur in the second column). Unique Values in Each Columnĭo you want to compare two columns by displaying the unique values in each column? Simply swap the last 2 arguments of the IF function.ġ. At step 2, we match each value in the second column with the range in the first column.
Note: at step 1, we matched each value in the first column with the range in the second column. You can also display the duplicates in the second column. As a result, the ISERROR function returns TRUE and the IF function returns an empty string.Ģ.
The MATCH function in cell C4 returns a #N/A error (no letter D in the range B1:B7). As a result, the ISERROR function returns FALSE and the IF function returns the value in cell A1. Display the duplicates in the first column (these values also occur in the second column).Įxplanation: the MATCH function in cell C1 returns the number 5 (letter A found at position 5 in the range B1:B7). Let's start by comparing two columns and displaying the duplicates.ġ.
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