Time for a quick but very useful tip. Ever wanted to create all combinations from two (or more) lists? a la Cartesian product of both lists.
Here is a ridiculously simple way to do it.
Make Cartesian product of two tables in Excel
Note: You need Excel 2013 or above for this.
- Convert two lists to tables, if not already done.
- Select any cell in one of the tables and go to Insert > Pivot Table (Use ALT + NV shortcut)
- Make sure to check “Add this data to the Data Model” option before clicking ok.
- From your pivot table field list, switch to ALL view.
- Add both (or all fields) to row label area.
- Now, change the pivot table layout to “Show in tabular form” and check “Repeat all item labels” option.
- Turn off sub totals & grand totals.
- Viola, your cross product is ready. All combinations are generated by Excel for you. Use them as you see fit.
More fun ways to use Pivot Tables
Pivot tables versatile. You can use them to replace formulas, analyze data, create interactive dashboards and do several cool things. Check out below tutorials to get started.
One Response to “How to compare two Excel sheets using VLOOKUP? [FREE Template]”
Maybe I missed it, but this method doesn't include data from James that isn't contained in Sara's data.
I added a new sheet, and named the ranges for Sara and James.
Maybe something like:
B2: =SORT(UNIQUE(VSTACK(SaraCust, JamesCust)))
C2: =XLOOKUP(B2#,SaraCust,SaraPaid,"Missing")
D2: =XLOOKUP(B2#,JamesCust, JamesPaid,"Missing")
E2: =IF(ISERROR(C2#+D2#),"Missing",IF(C2#=D2#,"Yes","No"))
Then we can still do similar conditional formatting. But this will pull in data missing from Sara's sheet as well.