Max, Thank you. You're solution of the Trim function worked....I was
misusing the function. =TRIM(LEFT(J3,SEARCH(" ",J3,SEARCH(" ",J3,1)+1)))
solved the problem. Thank you again


"Max" wrote:

Venturing some thoughts. It could be just data inconsistency issues throwing
apparent duplicates recognition off. Eg: extraneous white spaces somewhere
which are hard-to-see/detect. Try TRIM to handle this, try replacing "J3"
with TRIM(J3) in your LEFT expression. Another possibility is text numbers
are being compared with equivalent real numbers. The comparison will fail.
LEFT per se will return "nums" as text numbers. You could try a "+0" to
coerce it to real numbers to enable correct matching, eg: LEFT(...)+0
--
Max
Singapore
http://savefile.com/projects/236895
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xdemechanik
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"Ed2" wrote:
I have successful Vlookup formulas and duplicate values between multiple
columns in a multipage spreadsheet. However, when I try to compare by
duplicate value a third set of 2 columns, Excel 2007 sees the entries as
unique while they are clearly duplicates. The only thing I see different in
this comparison over the other column comparisons is that I am using a
formula =LEFT(J3, SEARCH(" ",J3,SEARCH(" ",J3,1)+1)) in one of the columns.
Any suggestions?