One way ..

Put in C1: =TRIM(A1)=TRIM(B1)
Copy down to C10000

Col C will return FALSE for exceptions, TRUE otherwise

You could then do a Data Filter Autofilter on col C thereafter (insert a
new row1 first, and enter a label in C1) to filter out FALSE

TRIM will improve robustness of the comparison via removing any extraneous
leading, trailing or in-between spaces which may be present (but not readily
visible) in the text in cols A and B

--
Rgds
Max
xl 97
---
GMT+8, 1° 22' N 103° 45' E
xdemechanik <atyahoo<dotcom
----
wrote in message
oups.com...
I have in an excel spreadsheet two columns of texts not numbers.
I would like to compare row 1 column a with row 1 column b
and return an exception if the two text fields do not match .
I have approx 10,000 rows , so you can see my problem .
Any help is deeply appreciated .

Regards Mason