We analysts like to compare. If you ever want to keep an analyst busy, just give her 2-3 options. She won’t return to your desk until the cows come home. My wife uses this trick all the time. Picture this:
[In late 2013]
Me: I want to buy a new phone
She: Do you want Nexus 5 or Galaxy S5 or iPhone 5s?
Its late 2014 and I am not done comparing.
So today, let’s talk about an interesting comparison scenario.
Comparing by letter or word
Imagine you are looking at 2 lists like this and you want to know where items differ. Not which items, but where.
That means, you want to know which letters or words in each line are different.
VBA to the rescue
Unfortunately, none of the standard features of Excel (formulas, conditional formatting, pivot tables etc.) can help us with this situation. But we don’t have to give up. We can use a simple VBA macro to instantly compare 2 lists and highlight mismatched letters or words.
[Related: How to compare 2 lists in Excel, a quick round up of techniques]
A quick demo of our comparison macro:
How does this macro work?
When you set out to create macros like this, the first step is to define basic algorithm (logical steps in plain English). To compare 2 sets of data, we need to do below:
- For each item in list 1
- Get corresponding item in list 2
- If they don’t match
- For word match
- For each word in first text
- Get corresponding word in second text
- Compare
- If not matched, highlight in red color
- Repeat for other words
- For letter match
- Find the first mismatched letter
- Highlight all the letters from that point in second text
- Repeat for next item in list 1
- Done
Once you write down this logic, we simply go ahead and implement it in VBA code.
The exact workings of the macro are somewhat complex. So I made a video explaining how the code works & what it can do. Please watch it below.
Video explaining the comparison macro
[see this video on our YouTube Channel]
Download Example Workbook
Click here to download the comparison macro workbook. Examine the code to understand how it is constructed. Feel free to extend it to suit your work needs.
Do you compare lists like this?
Every now and then, I end up having a situation where I need to compare by letter or word. I find VBA macro based solution to be perfect for this.
What about you? Do you compare lists? Where do you struggle with such comparisons? How would you use this macro? Please share your thoughts & tips in comments.
Become incomparable, learn VBA
While VBA is pretty powerful & awesome, not many venture beyond the basic recorded macros. You can transform the work, career & skills by learning VBA. It is not at all difficult and anyone can learn it. Start with below links.
- Introduction to VBA & 5 part crash course
- What is a macro and how to get started with VBA
- 40+ Example VBA macros
- Course: Online VBA Classes from Chandoo
23 Responses to “Learn Top 10 Excel Features”
What it looks like if excel without formula?? 🙂
It would be not excel it would just be fancy tables in which you could just use power point. (Chandoo) would Access be an alternative?
Awesome piece of work!!!
Great article.
Chandoo - my biggest interest in the article was the awesome word-graphic at the top - where did you go to get it done into a shape?
@Rich.. thank you. I used http://www.tagxedo.com/ to generate this word cloud. I took all the comments in the original post, pasted them in tagxedo website and set up the shape etc.
Awesome Chandoo.. You need always needs coffee to start up with. BTW , how did u created the Heart Shaped picture filled with High Repetitive text in it .. Please put it on your Next blog ...
Chandoo, good article. I’ve added a link to it from Connexion – our collection of the most useful and interesting spreadsheet-related articles from the web. See http://www.i-nth.com/resources/connexion
Hi,
Just one small question. Where the hell have been I in the past for not discovering this website sooner?
I've lost a job interview recently where even though I had the subject knowledge, I was not upto their mark in Excel.
Thank you for all the free tips, guidance and for creating this forum environment.
[PS: I've just been through the site for the 1st time, and have signed up for the newsletter. You can expect pretty stupid questions from me soon]
Hy Chandoo, you always inspire me with to explore something new in excel. This data structure table is only for excel 2007 or compatible to 2010. I recently installed latest excel version 2013 in my System and experience problems regarding operating according to previous one. I'm waiting your article relates to that excel version.
Thanks
Awesome article Mr. Chandoo and that is a awesome heart shaped pic you created. Great tips as well.
[...] Learn Top 10 Excel Features | Chandoo.org – Learn Microsoft Excel Online. [...]
Chandoo is awesome..
Thanks, i got better, And i always get 90.50 in my grade card but now i get 96.50 i improved because of the tutorials you gave, Thank You Very Much Chandoo Guy.
Hi chandoo, i am intersted in seeing the video or step by step done procedure of analysing the comments and presenting in the data percentage steps. I think this one would be first step in finding out how generally happens data calculation. Thank you.
As well i would like to know how to get that black shape art of your face which i see in chandoo. I am interested in making it for me.
Nice to see the features considered by Excel users to be most useful. It might be a good idea to also analyze StackOverflow Excel questions to see what keywords appear most often.
Here are my top 10 Excel Features (for advanced users):
http://www.analystcave.com/excel-10-top-excel-features/
Thanks a ton for this it totally helped with my homework ????
Very good effort
Thank you for this. Lots of learning in the links you've provided for this septuagenarian.
Pls send me new post
Dude, your humor ? ?
Loved your work.
Hello Sir,
I am Sanjeev Khakre and i from Indore City, India , I am your big follower and i have watch your videos and learnt a lots of excel trick or function and many more . thanks so much for all of your excellent support.
Your excel knowledge is real awesome.
Thanks
Sanjeev
Your work is excellent but pls willing to know more details about the features of microsoft excel
Chandoo Would Access be a better alternative than VB?