How to compare with excel

Let’s say you have two Excel workbooks, or maybe two versions of the same workbook, that you want to compare. Or maybe you want to find potential problems, like manually-entered (instead of calculated) totals, or broken formulas. You can use Microsoft Spreadsheet Compare to run a report on the differences and problems it finds.

Important: Spreadsheet Compare is only available with Office Professional Plus 2013, Office Professional Plus 2016, Office Professional Plus 2019, or Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise.

Open Spreadsheet Compare

On the Start screen, click Spreadsheet Compare. If you do not see a Spreadsheet Compare option, begin typing the words Spreadsheet Compare, and then select its option.

In addition to Spreadsheet Compare, you’ll also find the companion program for Access – Microsoft Database Compare. It also requires Office Professional Plus versions or Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise.

Compare two Excel workbooks

1. Click Home > Compare Files.

   

   The Compare Files dialog box appears.

2. Click the blue folder icon next to the Compare box to browse to the location of the earlier version of your workbook. In addition to files saved on your computer or on a network, you can enter a web address to a site where your workbooks are saved.

   

3. Click the green folder icon next to the To box to browse to the location of the workbook that you want to compare to the earlier version, and then click OK.

   Tip: You can compare two files with the same name if they’re saved in different folders.

4. In the left pane, choose the options you want to see in the results of the workbook comparison by checking or unchecking the options, such as Formulas, Macros, or Cell Format. Or, just Select All.

   

5. Click OK to run the comparison.

If you get an «Unable to open workbook» message, this might mean one of the workbooks is password protected. Click OK and then enter the workbook’s password. Learn more about how passwords and Spreadsheet Compare work together.

The results of the comparison appear in a two-pane grid. The workbook on the left corresponds to the «Compare» (typically older) file you chose and the workbook on the right corresponds to the «To» (typically newer) file. Details appear in a pane below the two grids. Changes are highlighted by color, depending on the kind of change.

Understanding the results

• In the side-by-side grid, a worksheet for each file is compared to the worksheet in the other file. If there are multiple worksheets, they’re available by clicking the forward and back buttons on the horizontal scroll bar.

  Note: Even if a worksheet is hidden, it’s still compared and shown in the results.

• Differences are highlighted with a cell fill color or text font color, depending on the type of difference. For example, cells with «entered values» (non-formula cells) are formatted with a green fill color in the side-by-side grid, and with a green font in the pane results list. The lower-left pane is a legend that shows what the colors mean.

In the example shown here, results for Q4 in the earlier version weren’t final. The latest version of the workbook contains the final numbers in the E column for Q4.

In the comparison results, cells E2:E5 in both versions have a green fill that means an entered value has changed. Because those values changed, the calculated results in the YTD column also changed – cells F2:F4 and E6:F6 have a blue-green fill that means the calculated value changed.

The calculated result in cell F5 also changed, but the more important reason is that in the earlier version its formula was incorrect (it summed only B5:D5, omitting the value for Q4). When the workbook was updated, the formula in F5 was corrected so that it’s now =SUM(B5:E5).

• If the cells are too narrow to show the cell contents, click Resize Cells to Fit.

Excel’s Inquire add-in

In addition to the comparison features of Spreadsheet Compare, Excel 2013 has an Inquire add-in you can turn on that makes an «Inquire» tab available. From the Inquire tab, you can analyze a workbook, see relationships between cells, worksheets, and other workbooks, and clean excess formatting from a worksheet. If you have two workbooks open in Excel that you want to compare, you can run Spreadsheet Compare by using the Compare Files command.

If you don’t see the Inquire tab in Excel, see Turn on the Inquire add-in. To learn more about the tools in the Inquire add-in, see What you can do with Spreadsheet Inquire.

Next steps

If you have «mission critical» Excel workbooks or Access databases in your organization, consider installing Microsoft’s spreadsheet and database management tools. Microsoft Audit and Control Management Server provides powerful change management features for Excel and Access files, and is complemented by Microsoft Discovery and Risk Assessment Server, which provides inventory and analysis features, all aimed at helping you reduce the risk associated with using tools developed by end users in Excel and Access.

Also see Overview of Spreadsheet Compare.

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Watch Video – How to Compare Two Excel Sheets for Differences

Comparing two Excel files (or comparing two sheets in the same file) can be tricky as an Excel workbook only shows one sheet at a time.

This becomes more difficult and error-prone when you have a lot of data that needs to be compared.

Thankfully, there are some cool features in Excel that allow you to open and easily compare two Excel files.

In this Excel tutorial, I will show you multiple ways to compare two different Excel files (or sheets) and check for differences. The method you choose will depend on how your data is structured and what kind of comparison you’re looking for.

Let’s get started!

Compare Two Excel Sheets in Separate Excel Files (Side-by-Side)

If you want to compare two separate Excel files side by side (or two sheets in the same workbook), there is an in-built feature in Excel to do this.

It’s the View Side by Side option.

This is recommended only when you have a small dataset and manually comparing these files is likely to be less time-consuming and error-prone. If you have a large dataset, I recommend using the conditional method or the formula method covered later in this tutorial.

Let’s see how to use this when you have to compare two separate files or two sheets in the same file.

Suppose you have two files for two different months and you want to check what values are different in these two files.

By default, when you open a file, it’s likely to take up your entire screen. Even if you reduce the size, you always see one Excel file at the top.

With the view side-by-side option, you can open two files and then arrange these horizontally or vertically. This allows you to easily compare the values without switching back and forth.

Below are the steps to align two files side by side and compare them:

1. Open the files that you want to compare.
2. In each file, select the sheet that you want to compare.
3. Click the View tab
4. In the Windows group, click on the ‘View Side by Side’ option. This becomes available only when you have two or more Excel files open.

As soon as you click on the View side by side option, Excel will arrange the workbook horizontally. Both of the files will be visible, and you’re free to edit/compare these files while they are arranged side by side.

In case you want to arrange the files vertically, click on the Arrange All option (in the View tab).

This will open the ‘Arrange Windows’ dialog box where you can select ‘Vertical’.

At this point, if you scroll down in one of the worksheets, the other one would remain as is. You can change this so that when you scroll in one sheet, the other also scrolls at the same time. This makes it easier to do a line by line comparison and spot any differences.

But to do this, you need to enable Synchronous Scrolling.

To enable Synchronous Scrolling, click on the View tab (in any of the workbooks) and then click on the Synchronous Scrolling option. This is a toggle button (so if you want to turn it off, simply click on it again).

Comparing Multiple Sheets in Separate Excel Files (Side-by-Side)

With the ‘View Side by Side’ option, you can only compare two Excel file at one go.

In case you have multiple Excel files open, when you click on the View Side by Side option, it will show you a ‘Compare Side by Side’ dialog box, where you can choose which file you want to compare with the active workbook.

In case you want to compare more than two files at one go, open all these files and then click on the Arrange All option (it’s in the View tab).

In the Arrange Windows dialog box, select Vertical/Horizontal and then click OK.

This will arrange all the open Excel files in the selected order (vertical or horizontal).

Compare Two Sheets (Side-by-Side) in the Same Excel Workbook

In case you want to compare two separate sheets in the same workbook, you can’t use the View side by side feature (as it works for separate Excel files only).

But you can still do the same side-by-side comparison.

This is made possible by the ‘New Windows’ feature in Excel, that allows you to open two instances on the same workbook. Once you have two instances open, you can arrange these side by side and then compare these.

Suppose you have an Excel workbook that has two sheets for two different months (Jan and Feb) and you want to compare these side by side to see how the sales per store have changed:

Below are the steps to compare two sheets in Excel:

1. Open the workbook that has the sheets that you want to compare.
2. Click the View tab
3. In the Window group, click on the ‘New Window’ option. This opens the second instance of the same workbook.
4. In the ‘View’ tab, click on ‘Arrange All’. This will open the Arrange Windows dialog box
5. Select ‘Vertical’ to compare data in columns (or select Horizontal if you want to compare data in rows).
6. Click OK.

The above steps would arrange both the instances of the workbook vertically.

At this point in time, both the workbooks would have the same worksheet selected. In one of the workbooks, select the other sheet that you want to compare with the active sheet.

How does this work?

When you click on New Window, it opens the same workbook again with a slightly different name. For example, if your workbook name is ‘Test’ and you click on New Window, it will name the already open workbook ‘Test – 1’ and the second instance as ‘Test – 2’.

Note that these are still the same workbook. If you make any changes in any of these workbooks, it would be reflected in both.

And when you close any one instance of the open file, the name would revert back to the original.

You can also enable synchronous scrolling if you want (by clicking on the ‘Synchronous Scrolling’ option in the ‘View’ tab)

Compare Two Sheets and Highlight Differences (Using Conditional Formatting)

While you can use the above method to align the workbooks together and manually go through the data line by line, it’s not a good way in case you have a lot of data.

Also, doing this level of comparison manually can lead to a lot of errors.

So instead of doing this manually, you can use the power of Conditional Formatting to quickly highlight any differences in the two Excel sheets.

This method is really useful if you have two versions in two different sheets and you want to quickly check what has changed.

Note that you CAN NOT compare two sheets in different workbooks.

Since Conditional Formatting can not refer to an external Excel file, the sheets you need to compare needs to be in the same Excel workbook. In case these aren’t, you can copy a sheet from the other file to the active workbook and then make this comparison.

For this example, suppose you have a dataset as shown below for two months (Jan and Feb) in two different sheets and you want to quickly compare the data in these two sheets and check if the prices of these items have changed or not.

Below are the steps to do this:

1. Select the data in the sheet where you want to highlight the changes. Since I want to check how prices have changed from Jan to Feb, I have selected the data in the Feb sheet.
2. Click the Home tab
3. In the Styles group, click on ‘Conditional Formatting’
4. In the options that show up, click on ‘New Rule’
5. In the ‘New Formatting Rule’ dialog box, click on ‘Use a formula to determine which cells to format’
6. In the formula field, enter the following formula: =B2<>Jan!B2
7. Click the Format button
8. In the Format Cells dialog box that shows up, click on the ‘Fill tab’ and select the color in which you want to highlight the mismatched data.
9. Click OK
10. Click OK

The above steps would instantly highlight any changes in the dataset in both the sheets.

How does this work?

Conditional formatting highlights a cell when the given formula for that cell returns a TRUE. In this example, we are comparing each cell in one sheet with the corresponding cell in the other sheet (done using the not equal to operator <> in the formula).

When conditional formatting finds any difference in the data, it highlights that in the Jan sheet (the one in which we have applied the conditional formatting.

Note that I have used relative reference in this example (A1 and not $A$1 or $A1 or A$1).

When using this method to compare two sheets in Excel, remember the following;

• This method is good to quickly identify differences, but you can’t use it on an on-going basis. For example, if I enter a new row in any of the datasets (or delete a row), it would give me incorrect results. As soon as I insert/delete the row, all subsequent rows are considered as different and highlighted accordingly.
• You can only compare two sheets in the same Excel file
• You can only compare the value (not the difference in formula or formatting).

Compare Two Excel Files/Sheets And Get The Differences Using Formula

If you’re only interested in quickly comparing and identifying the differences between two sheets, you can use a formula to fetch only those values that are different.

For this method, you will need to have a separate worksheet where you can fetch the differences.

This method would work if want to compare two separate Excel workbook or worksheets in the same workbook.

Let me show you an example where I am comparing two datasets in two sheets (in the same workbook).

Suppose you have the dataset as shown below in a sheet called Jan (and similar data in a sheet called Feb), and you want to know what values are different.

To compare the two sheets, first, insert a new worksheet (let’s call this sheet ‘Difference’).

In cell A1, enter the following formula:

=IF(Jan!A1<>Feb!A1,"Jan Value:"&Jan!A1&CHAR(10)&"Feb Value:"&Feb!A1,"")

Copy and paste this formula for a range so that it covers the entire dataset in both the sheets. Since I have a small dataset, I will only copy and paste this formula in A1:B10 range.

The above formula uses an IF condition to check for differences. In case there is no difference in the values, it will return blank, and in case there is a difference, it will return the values from both the sheets in separate lines in the same cell.

The good thing with this method is that it only gives you the differences and show you exactly what the difference is. In this example, I can easily see that the price in cell B4 and B8 are different (as well as the exact values in these cells).

Compare Two Excel Files/Sheets And Get The Differences Using VBA

If you need to compare Excel files or sheets quite often, it’s a good idea to have a ready Excel macro VBA code and use it whenever you need to make the comparison.

You can also add the macro to the Quick Access Toolbar so that you can access with a single button and instantly know what cells are different in different files/sheets.

Suppose you have two sheets Jan and Feb and you want to compare and highlight differences in the Jan sheet, you can use the below VBA code:

Sub CompareSheets()
Dim rngCell As Range
 
For Each rngCell In Worksheets("Jan").UsedRange

    If Not rngCell = Worksheets("Feb").Cells(rngCell.Row, rngCell.Column) Then
        rngCell.Interior.Color = vbYellow
    End If

Next rngCell

End Sub

The above code uses the For Next loop to go through each cell in the Jan sheet (the entire used range) and compares it with the corresponding cell in the Feb sheet. In case it finds a difference (which is checked using the If-Then statement), it highlights those cells in yellow.

You can use this code in a regular module in the VB Editor.

And if you need to do this often, it’s better to save this code in the Personal Macro workbook and then add it to the Quick Access toolbar. In those ways, you will be able to do this comparison with a click of a button.

Here are the steps to get the Personal Macro Workbook in Excel (it’s not available by default so you need to enable it).

Here are the steps to save this code in the Personal Macro Workbook.

And here you will find the steps to add this macro code to the QAT.

Using a Third-Party Tool – XL Comparator

Another quick way to compare two Excel files and check for matches and differences is by using a free third-party tool such as XL Comparator.

This is a web-based tool where you can upload two Excel files and it will create a comparison file that will have the data that is common (or different data based on what option you selected.

Suppose you have two files that have customer datasets (such as name and email address), and you want to quickly check what customers are there is file 1 and not in file 2.

Below is how you compare two Excel files and create a comparison report:

1. Open https://www.xlcomparator.net/
2. Use the Choose file option to upload two files (maximum size of each file can be 5MB)
3. Click on the Next button.
4. Select the common column in both these files. The tool will use this common column to look for matches and differences
5. Select one of the four options, whether you want to get matching data or different data (based on File 1 or File 2)
6. Click on Next
7. Download the comparison file which will have the data (based on what option you selected in step 5)

Below is a video that shows how XL Comparator tool works.

One concern you may have when using a third-party tool to compare Excel files is about privacy.

If you have confidential data and privacy is really important for it, it’s better to use other methods shown above.

Note that the XL Comparator website mentions that they delete all the files after 1 hour of doing the comparison.

These are some of the methods you can use to compare two different Excel files (or worksheets in the same Excel file). Hope you found this Excel tutorial useful.

You may also like the following Excel tutorials:

• How to Compare Two Columns in Excel (for matches & differences)
• How to  Remove Duplicates in Excel
• How to Compare Text in Excel (Easy Formulas)
• Split Each Excel Sheet Into Separate Files (Step-by-Step)
• Combine Data from Multiple Workbooks in Excel
• Combine Data From Multiple Worksheets into a Single Worksheet in Excel
• How to Compare Dates in Excel (Greater/Less Than, Mismatches)

Now that we know how easy it is to compare two Excel files, let’s see how we can apply this viewing method to Excel sheets.

Hay Paula, can you compare lists in Excel?

or

What is the best way to compare two sets of data in Excel?

Very often there is a requirement in Excel to compare two lists, or two data sets to find missing or matching items.   As this is Excel, there are always more than one way to do things, including comparing data.  From formulas and Conditional Formatting to Power Query.  In this article we are going to look at a number ways to compare two lists in Excel and we will also look at comparing entire rows of a data set.

Maybe your preferred way is not included below.  If not why don’t you drop a comment below and share with us how you like to compare two lists or datasets in Excel.  I look forward to reading your comments.

We wish to compare List 1 with List 2. 

Contents

Quick Conditional Formatting to compare two columns of data

Clearing the Conditional Formatting

Match data in Excel using the MATCH function

Compare 2 lists in Excel 365 with MATCH or XMATCH as a Dynamic Array function

MATCH and Dynamic arrays to compare 2 lists

XMATCH Excel 365 to compare two lists

Tables – Comparing lists in Excel where the ranges sizes might change

Highlight differences in Lists using Custom Conditional Formatting

Copy formula to Custom Conditional Formatting

Other Formulas used to compare two lists in Excel

VLOOKUP to compare two lists in Excel

XLOOKUP to compare two lists in Excel

COUNTIF to compare two lists in Excel

How to compare 2 data sets in Excel

Comparing lists or datasets using Power Query

Quick Conditional Formatting to compare two columns of data

Conditional formatting will allow you to highlight a cells or range based on predefined criteria.  The quickest and simplest way to visually compare these two columns quickly is to use the predefined highlight duplicate value rule.

Start by selecting the two columns of data. 

From the Home tab, select the Conditional Formatting drop down.  Then select Highlight Cells Rules. Next select Duplicate values.

A Duplicate Values settings box will open where you can define the formatting and select between Duplicate or Unique values.

By Selecting Duplicate, all reoccurring entries will be set to the selected formatting.  Now you can quickly see the items in List 1 that are in List 2 as these are the formatted items.  You can also quickly see the items in list 2 that are not in list 1 as these do not have formatting applied.

However, you can also format the Unique items.  This can be achieved by selecting Unique from the Duplicate Values setup box.

In this case, we have applied two different conditional formats.  The red indicating the duplicates and the green indicating the unique items.

Note, I did not just take the cells with data, I grabbed all of columns A to C.  Column B has no data, so it cannot affect the results. However, these cells do contain the conditional formatting applied so it would be better practice to only select the cells you need.

Clearing the Conditional Formatting

To clear all conditional formatting, first select the cell, or range. Then select the conditional formatting drop down on the Home ribbon.  Next select Clear Rules.  Finally Select Clear Rules from Selected Cells.

If you have more than one conditional formatting applied at once and you only want to remove one of these, select Manage Rules from the conditional formatting drop down. Select the rule you want to delete and then select Delete Rule.

By pressing OK, the rule will removed from the Rules Manager and the cells will no longer contain the formatting.

So that is the most basic way you can compare two lists in Excel.  Its quick, its simple and it is effective.  You can also apply conditional formatting based on formulas, which we will look at later in this article.

Match data in Excel using the MATCH function

There are many lookup formulas that you can use to compare two ranges or lists in Excel.  The first we will look at is the MATCH function.

The MATCH function returns the relative position in a list.  A number based on its position, if found, in the lookup array.

The syntax for MATCH is

=MATCH (lookup value, Lookup array, Match type)

Where lookup value is the value you want to find a match for.  Lookup array is the list in which you are looking for a match. And Match type allows you to select between an exact or approximate match.

We want to write a match formula to see if the items in List 2 are in List 1.

In cell E3 we can enter the formula

=MATCH(C2, $A$2:$A$21,0)

By filling this formula down, for the values where Excel finds a match, the position of that match will be returned.  Where there is no match the return value will be an #N/A.

Very often, the relative position or the #N/A is of no value to us and we need to convert these values into true or false.  To do this we can easily expand on our Match formula using a logical function.  As Match returns a number, we can use the ISNUMBER function

=ISNUMBER(MATCH(C2, $A$2:$A$21,0))

Compare 2 lists in Excel 365 with MATCH or XMATCH as a Dynamic Array function

If you are using Excel 365 you have further alternatives when using MATCH to compare lists or data.  As Excel 365 thinks in arrays, we can now pass an array as the lookup value of MATCH and our results will spill for us.  This removes the need to copy the formula down and with only 1 formula, your spreadsheet will be less prone to errors and more compact.

MATCH and Dynamic arrays to compare 2 lists

If you are not yet familiar with Dynamic Arrays, I would suggest you have a read of this article: Excel Dynamic Arrays – A new way to model your Excel Spreadsheets: to get a better understand on how they work and spill ranges.

The only change to the match formula is instead of selecting cell C2 as our lookup value we will select the range C2:12

=ISNUMBER(MATCH (C2:C12,$A$2:$A$21,0))

 As you can see, the one formula spills the results down column E.

XMATCH Excel 365 to compare two lists

Excel 365 also introduces the new function XMATCH.  Just like the MATCH function XMATCH returns a relative position in a list. Now you are familiar XLOOKUP, which replaces the old VLOOKUP function, you know XLOOKUP comes with additional power.  This come in the form of new conditions in the formula syntax such as search mode and match types.  Well, XMATCH also as this extra power over its predecessor MATCH.

The syntax for XMATCH is

XMATCH (Lookup Value, Lookup Array, [Match Mode],[Search Mode])

Where

Lookup Value is the value you are looking to find the relative position

Lookup Array is the row or column that contains the Lookup Value

Match mode is optional.  Unlike the old MATCH function, the default is an exact match.  You can also select between

1. Exact match or next smallest
2. Exact match or next largest
3. Wildcard match

Search mode is also optional.  The default (and only option in the old MATCH function) is to look from the top down.  You can also select last to first and binary searches.  If you are working with binary searches. The wildcard match option does not work.

With XMATCH we can use either Dynamic arrays or cell references to create the formula, just like we have looked at with MATCH.  For this example, we will use Dynamic Arrays.  The formula is very similar to what we used with MATCH; except we do not have to select 0 for an exact match as in XMATCH this is the default setting.   Let us mix things up a little this time a look at finding items in list 2 not in list one.

In this case we can use the formula

=NOT(ISNUMBER(XMATCH(C2:C12,A2:A21)))

Where not will turn trues into false and false into trues.

Tables – Comparing lists in Excel where the ranges sizes might change

In each of the formulas we have looked at so far, we have selected a range of cells in our Match functions that is not dynamic.  That means if we add new data to one of the lists, we have a manual step to update our formula to include the new data.

To convert the lists to tables, select one of the lists and press CTRL.  This is the keyboard shortcut to convert to a table.  If you selected the header in the range of cells, ensure you tick the box to confirm your table has headers.

Tables by their nature use structured naming.  Therefore, when you are writing a formula and you select a column from a table, it will not show cell references, but the column name.

Looking at our previous formula using XMATCH to find items in list 2 not in list 1, we can re-write this function now using our table references

=NOT (ISNUMBER(XMATCH(list2[List 2],list1[List 1])))

Now, as we have used tables, if we add a new row to either of the tables, our spill range will also increase to include the new data.

Highlight differences in Lists using Custom Conditional Formatting

Earlier in this article we looked at a very quick way of comparing these two lists using a predefined rule for duplicates.  We can however also use Custom Conditional Formatting.  If you are not familiar with Custom Conditional Formatting, I would suggest you check out this article: Excel Dynamic Conditional Formatting Tricks: 

We need to look at two different approaches here to highlighting differences.  When we are not using tables and we have created a true/false formula to identify the differences, we can take a copy of the formula and add this to our Custom formatting.  However, with Tables we need to force the use of cell references.

Copy formula to Custom Conditional Formatting

Start by taking a copy of the formula.  As we have tested the formula in the spreadsheet, we can see that it works before we use it in conditional formatting.  This is best practice as very often with relative and absolute cell references it can be difficult to get the formula correct.

Select the cells that you want to apply the custom formatting to. Then from the Home ribbon select the conditional formatting drop down and select New Rule

The New Formatting Rule set up box will open and select Use Formula to determine which cells to format.  Then paste in the formula and set the formatting type

This will result in all cells that are in both lists being formatted to your chosen format.

Keep in mind that we selected a range of cells to apply this conditional formatting and it is not dynamic.  Should we use tables, this would update without the need to change anything!

Other Formulas used to compare two lists in Excel

There are many formulas you can use to compare two lists in Excel.  We have already looked at MATCH and XMATCH, but now we are going to look at a few more.  Any of the lookup functions will really work along with some others!

VLOOKUP to compare two lists in Excel

If you are not familiar with VLOOKUP, you can read about it here.  Simply put VLOOKUP will return a corresponding value from a cell, if there is no corresponding value an #N/A error will be returned.  In our example we are working with text.  So, we can carry out a VLOOKUP and test to see if it returns text.  If we were using numbers then we could replace ISTEXT with ISNUMBER.

We could use the function =ISTEXT(VLOOKUP(C2, $A$2:$A$21,1,FALSE))

Or if we were using Dynamic arrays in Excel 365, we could use the function

=ISTEXT(VLOOKUP (C2:C12,$A$2:$A$21,1,FALSE))

XLOOKUP to compare two lists in Excel

XLOOKUP was introduced in Excel 365 and you can find out more about it here.  Very much like VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP will return a corresponding value from a cell, and you can define a result if the value is not found.  Using Dynamic arrays, the function would be

=ISTEXT(XLOOKUP (C2:C12,A2:A21,A2:A21))

COUNTIF to compare two lists in Excel

The COUNTIF function will count the number of times a value, or text is contained within a range.  If the value is not found, 0 is returned.  We can combine this with an IF statement to return our true and false values.

=IF(COUNTIF (A2:A21,C2:C12)<>0,”True”, “False”)

How to compare 2 data sets in Excel

Comparing two lists is easy enough and we have looked now at several ways to do this.  But comparing two data sets can be a little more difficult.

Let us look at an example.  We have two tables of data, each containing the same column headers.  Looking at the image, we can see matching these two tables would require looking at more than one column.

When you need to look at more than one column, the solution would be to create a composite column combining the data into one column.  This will create a unique column for each row which we can then use as the matching column

In this example we could combine the Name and DoB to give each table a unique identifier

There are many ways to join contents of a cell, in this case we will do a simple concatenate.  As we are using tables, the formula will shoe the table naming format.

=[@Name] &”-“&[@DoB]

Repeat the steps on the second table.

Now we can use any of the examples above to match these two new columns of data.  Where they match, we know they match the entire row.

Comparing lists or datasets using Power Query

You can also compare lists and datasets using Excels Power Query.  By connecting to the tables and then merging the tables, using different join types we can compare both lists.

In this video you will learn how to compare or reconcile two different data sets using Excels Power query

There is a data set to go along with this video and practice along which you can grab from this article.

However very often you will have datasets where there is no matching column and we need to create a column to carry out a reconciliation between two different lists or two different data sources.  In this video you will learn how to create a matching column using power query so you can then compare the data.

Free Online Diff Checker to Compare Two Excel Spreadsheet Files

How to compare two excel files for differences?

Using this free web tool, you can compare any Excel / Calc document easily. Just select first/original file in left window and second/modified file in right window. Your data will automatically be extracted. First sheet is automatically selected and you can change it in the dropdown.

Alternatively you can also copy and paste directly into left and right windows.

After that click on 🔍 Find Difference button to find diff. All differences will be shown with removals/additions & changed values highlighted in red/green & blue color.

You can export the diff .xlsx, .csv, .ods, or .html file format.(If you face problem in Excel export, use OpenDocument export(unstyled).)

Otherwise you can also select all (Ctrl-A) and copy (Ctrl-C) and then paste in your spreadsheet software (Ctrl-V).

How to Compare two excel sheets in same file?

To diff two sheets, you can upload same file for both original/modified section and choose sheet accordingly from the dropdown.

What does +++/—/—>/@@/: indicate 🤔?

• +++ This row has been added in second/modified file.
• — This row has been removed in second/modified file.
• —> Cell value different.
• : Moved/Reordered row.
• @@ Header row.
• … Unchanged rows/cols have been omitted in between.

Read More about spec

What spreadsheet file formats does this Excel diff tool support?

This tool can read following worksheet/workbook formats:

• Excel 2007+ (XLS/XLSX/XLSM/XLSB)
• Delimiter-Separated Values Text files (CSV/TXT) (Use CSV Compare tool if CSV parsing fails)
• Data Interchange Format (DIF)
• OpenDocument Spreadsheet (ODS/FODS)
• HTML Tables

Does this compare against formulas?

No, this tool only does value based comparisons. Two files are compared per row/column wise. So, to get better results your sheets should be organized (sorted/ similar column layout).

What about my data?

This is a web based tool. All data extraction/comparison/export is done in your 🖥 browser itself. Nothing is uploaded to our server if you are only comparing.

However, if you want to share results with others, you must choose to save the result which then will be uploaded to our server.

You’ll be given a unique URL for your result & your result will be viewable to anyone with that unique URL.

Libraries used in this Tool

• SheetJS
• Daff