I have a list of titles (say movies) in one column in a file which I need to
match against a database with a similar field. The only thing is that my file
may not have the titles spelt in the same format or even be a 100% match. Is
there a way I can do a match based on the number of letters/ words? I can use
Access as well if its better using it. Thank you for the advice.

Well, you can get the number of characters in a cell by doing =LEN(A1) if the
text is in A1. But I'm not sure how that would help your situation. Both
"Annie Hall" and "Terminator" have 10 characters. But those are different
movies. So testing for the length of a text string doesn't sound reliable.

I don't know that Access would help you in any way that Excel could not.

Dave
--
A hint to posters: Specific, detailed questions are more likely to be
answered than questions that provide no detail about your problem.


"bookworm" wrote:

I have a list of titles (say movies) in one column in a file which I need to
match against a database with a similar field. The only thing is that my file
may not have the titles spelt in the same format or even be a 100% match. Is
there a way I can do a match based on the number of letters/ words? I can use
Access as well if its better using it. Thank you for the advice.

I guess what I was trying to say is can I find a match based on the letters?
So if I have "Annie" in one file and "Annie Hall" in the other, there is some
match which I can then eyeball and decide if its the same.

"Dave F" wrote:

Well, you can get the number of characters in a cell by doing =LEN(A1) if the
text is in A1. But I'm not sure how that would help your situation. Both
"Annie Hall" and "Terminator" have 10 characters. But those are different
movies. So testing for the length of a text string doesn't sound reliable.

I don't know that Access would help you in any way that Excel could not.

Dave
--
A hint to posters: Specific, detailed questions are more likely to be
answered than questions that provide no detail about your problem.


"bookworm" wrote:

I have a list of titles (say movies) in one column in a file which I need to
match against a database with a similar field. The only thing is that my file
may not have the titles spelt in the same format or even be a 100% match. Is
there a way I can do a match based on the number of letters/ words? I can use
Access as well if its better using it. Thank you for the advice.

Maybe something like
=IF(AND(LEFT(A1,5)="Annie"),LEFT(B1,5)="Annie"),"M atch","Unmatched")

But even there you may run into problems. There are two separate movies,
Annie Hall and there's Annie.

Sounds like the more painful solution is to clean the two source lists
before attempting to match.

Dave
--
A hint to posters: Specific, detailed questions are more likely to be
answered than questions that provide no detail about your problem.


"bookworm" wrote:

I guess what I was trying to say is can I find a match based on the letters?
So if I have "Annie" in one file and "Annie Hall" in the other, there is some
match which I can then eyeball and decide if its the same.

"Dave F" wrote:

Well, you can get the number of characters in a cell by doing =LEN(A1) if the
text is in A1. But I'm not sure how that would help your situation. Both
"Annie Hall" and "Terminator" have 10 characters. But those are different
movies. So testing for the length of a text string doesn't sound reliable.

I don't know that Access would help you in any way that Excel could not.

Dave
--
A hint to posters: Specific, detailed questions are more likely to be
answered than questions that provide no detail about your problem.


"bookworm" wrote:

I have a list of titles (say movies) in one column in a file which I need to
match against a database with a similar field. The only thing is that my file
may not have the titles spelt in the same format or even be a 100% match. Is
there a way I can do a match based on the number of letters/ words? I can use
Access as well if its better using it. Thank you for the advice.