Quickly Identify Column Differences

Excel Tip #021

Quickly Identify Column Differences

If you need to compare two or more columns of data, there are various methods you can use in Excel to check for differences. Sorting, Conditional Formatting and using formulas such as MATCH or VLOOKUP are just a few of them. For years, whenever I needed to compare two columns of data, I used a simple formula such as =B2=C2 that would give me TRUE if the cells are the same and FALSE if they aren't.

But there's and even easier and faster way identify differences in columns of data without using formulas.

  1. Select the columns to compare
  2. Press press CTRL + \ (or press F5, Special.., Row Differences, OK). Cells in the 'non-control' column(s), whose values don't match the values in the control column, are selected
  3. Add a background Fill color to make the selected cells more visible
  4. For 2-column and multiple row comparisons, Right-click one of the highlighted cells and choose Filter, Filter by Selected Cell's Color.
Consider the below example, 10 sales rep and their corresponding points awarded in the last 3 months. We want to compare whether the sales rep have got any points from their base points (from last year) in the last 3 months (or) not.

Column Difference - Comparison

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