This article explains how to compare two cells of text string value. There are two easy ways to compare the cells having text strings in excel.
Using EXACT function
This function compares two text strings and returns TRUE if they are exactly equal, FALSE otherwise.
EXACT function does case sensitive comparison/match i.e. it treats Why and why as two different strings and returns FALSE
Syntax: EXACT(string1, string2)
Examples:
suppose A1 = “hi”, B1 = “hi”, A2 = “hello”, B2= “Hello” then
= EXACT(A1,B1) returns TRUE
= EXACT(A2,B2) returns FALSE since B2 has capital H
Using IF(string1=string2, “equal”, “not equal”) function
This function is not case sensitive and also it is useful if you want to print your custom return values.
Examples:
Suppose A1 = “Hey”, B1 = “hey”, A2 = “bye”, B2=”bye”, A3 = “byee”
=IF(A1=B1,”equal”,”not equal”) returns equal
=IF(A2=B2, “MATCH”, “NO MATCH”) returns MATCH
=IF(B2=A3, “MATCH”, “NO MATCH”) returns NO MATCH
