hi,

does anyone have a clue how to use the vlookup or some similar function
to find and show approximate text,number match?

there are 2 columns for example:

1. 2.
ch-223 ch223
67/a23 67-a23

I am just trying to find also similar matches, because I have a large
workbook contain a couple of thousands items, which sometimes differ
only in - or / sign, but the vlookup (false) function, of course, tells
me that it didn't find it. I want to find it and show it or higlight
that row, so I can then manually check the difference and correct it,
if possible. It's a matter of 2 workbooks that came from 2 different
companies, where they have obviously used some other signs for some
products, so I have a bit of a problem now with linking these 2
workbooks.

Thanks.

Tom

tomaz. wrote...
hi,

does anyone have a clue how to use the vlookup or some similar function
to find and show approximate text,number match?

there are 2 columns for example:

1. 2.
ch-223 ch223
67/a23 67-a23

I am just trying to find also similar matches, because I have a large
workbook contain a couple of thousands items, which sometimes differ
only in - or / sign, but the vlookup (false) function, of course, tells
me that it didn't find it. I want to find it and show it or higlight
that row, so I can then manually check the difference and correct it,
if possible. It's a matter of 2 workbooks that came from 2 different
companies, where they have obviously used some other signs for some
products, so I have a bit of a problem now with linking these 2
workbooks.

Thanks.

Tom


Hi!

Why not just use EditReplace and remove all the "-" and "/" then they
should all match.

Select the range of cells in question
Goto EditReplace
Find what: -
Replace with: nothing, leave this empty
Replace All

Repeat the process for the "/".

Biff

Hi Tom,

Google for examples with regular expressions (regex) and Excel / VBA.

HTH,
Bernd