compare two columns in excel to find differences

That’s it! You have three options to identify and filter duplicate values to find matches and differences in your Microsoft Excel sheets data.

To remove the duplicate cells, highlight all the cells.

Enter the following formula: =IF(ISERROR(MATCH(A2,$C$2:$C$7,0)),”Not Duplicate”,”Duplicate”), whereas A is the first column and C is the second column, number 2 is the start of the column cell, and 7 is the last cell.

You can compare the two columns with matching values or unique values. A new window will appear on the screen with options to select 'Duplicate' and 'Unique' values. Next, navigate to Conditional Formatting in Excel Option.

Insert a new column in between the two columns that you want to compare. Navigate to the 'Home' option and select duplicate values in the toolbar.

Set the formatting for the unique cells.

If you want to highlight the unique data instead, Navigate to the Conditional Formatting.

Next, choose the formatting that you want to highlight the duplicate cells beside values with.

On your Microsoft Excel sheet, highlight the cells or columns that you want to compare.

Method #2 – Highlight Duplicate/Unique Values

Enter the following formula: =countif($B:$B, $A1), whereas A is the first column and B is the second column.

Scroll down to Format values where this formula is true.

Under Rule Type, click Use a formula to determine which cells to format.

Navigate to Conditional Formatting on the right side.

Click the Column Header of the first column to highlight all cells.

Open the Excel sheet where you want to compare two columns.

You can check them below and find the format which is more suitable for you. There are several methods and ways you can use to find matches and locate unique or duplicate data on your Microsoft Excel columns. Image credit: Microsoft Ways to Compare Two Microsoft Excel Columns for Duplicate/Unique Data You can compare two columns at the same time to highlight and check the values for differences and matches. Microsoft Excel can help you minimize errors and find duplicate values on your spreadsheet columns. However, we may tend to overlook them, especially if we are dealing with a lot of columns and data in our worksheets. I have created a new column in Column C and named it Matches. This technique will compare two columns in Excel and show the unique values as the difference between the columns in a separate column. Alternative Way 6: Compare Two Lists and Return Differences in Excel. There are also instances when we add duplicate values on cells that should not be there. 4+ Methods to Filter Duplicate Values in Excel. Not all the time we can perfectly input data on Microsoft Excel without errors.

Compare two columns in excel to find differences