How to Compare Numbers in Excel

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You can compare numbers on your worksheet using Excel. Learn how to do this in this article. Check additional information about Compare numbers.

MS Excel is one of the most used applications today. This is because of its functionality and its offer of ease to the users. This allows you to compute and organize your data well. When you want to compare numbers and other data, this can be easily done when you utilize Excel. There may be different ways presented but they will definitely allow you to get the results that you would like to attain.

So when you want to compare numbers using Excel, one of the first things that you have to learn about are the formulas. They are the ones that will enable you to achieve specific tasks especially when computing or working with numbers. Let us say that you would like to compare numbers in a certain column and then with another. To do this, you will need to formulate a compare numbers formula so that you will not have to do things manually. For instance, in Column A there are 350 sets of numbers while in Column B there are 380. You can do this with the help of the "VLOOKUP" function.

Before you utilize the said function, you should first sort one of the columns wherein you would like to compare numerical data. After that, you can go to an empty cell and then type in this formula: =VLOOKUP(Cell from the column you did not sort, select the cells that come from the sorted column, the number that you would like it to return when the case is found, FALSE). You can type in 1 for the number. The values are found in the same file, you can add the dollar sign, which is $. This is for absolute reference for the range of the formula. This way, when you copy the formula to the other cells in your file, the array will not change. If you need help for this one, you can always seek the help of the Office Assistant in Excel.

Another example is when you would like to compare numbers from two lists. Let us say that you will be coming assets - the first one being the fixed asset records while the other is the property tax affidavit. This is an easy method that involves five steps. The first thing that you need to do is to ensure that each of the assets has its own identifier. Then, you will have to find assets that are found in the property tax affidavit but are not present in the fixed asset records Third, you will have to do the same thing but in the opposite way around. Fourth is that you will need to sort the l that you can see whether there are assets that do not match with one another. The last method is to review those dissimilar assets and then you can check for accuracy.

Usually, you should be able to standardize your lists before you ask Excel to compare them. Inconsistency, abbreviations and extra numbers should be smoothened before you compare. For instance, in the document you have 12345 and then there is the 12345-1044. To standardize this, you will need to utilize the RIGHT or LEFT functions so that you can create a field that will contain only the numbers from the right or the left.

If you are interested in Compare numbers, check this link to find out more about compare numerical data. Also, you can check other articles in Comparison in Excel category.