I think the vlookup is the way to go.

John
-----Original Message-----
I have two sets of data that are each 2 columns by a
variable number
of rows (usu. 400 - 500)that are each imported into
Excel. The first
column is text the other is numbers. I need to take the
first cell of
the first column of one of the datasets and find it's
match in the
first column of the other dataset. Once the match is
found the two 2nd
columns need to be compared (most often they will match
resulting in a
zero variance) if they do not match the variance needs to
be specified
on the sheet so that it may be investigated. Also, each
text cell in
the column which is being compared to should only be
matched once (in
the case that the orginal comparison figure is in the
dataset twice).

In the past, I have used Vlookup on the worksheet, but I
have a
feeling that it could be handled much easier in VBA

Assistance is appreciated.
.