Find the differences between two excel sheets?

Question

I have two excel files with the same structure: both of them have 1 data column. One has 800 records and the other has 805 records, but I'm not sure which of the 5 in set 805 is not in set 800. Can I find this with Excel?

Answer 1

vlookup is your friend!

Put your column, one value per row, in column A of each table. in column B of a larger sheet, enter

=VLOOKUP(A1,'[Book2.xlsb]SheetName'!$A:$A,1,FALSE) 

Then copy the formula until the data column is executed.

If the result of the formula is FALSE, this data is not on another sheet.

Answer 2

This may seem like a hack, but I personally prefer to copy cells as text (or export as CSV) to Winmerge or any other tool. Assuming the two sheets contain mostly identical data, Winmerge will immediately show the differences.

Answer 3

LibreOffice provides a feature for comparing a workbook: Edit -> Compare Document

Answer 4

Excel has a built-in function if you have an excel version with the Request add-in.

This link from the office webpage describes how to enable the add-in if it is not activated, and how to compare two comparisons of two books - among other things.

The comparison shows both structural differences, and editorial, and many other changes if http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/what-you-can-do-with-spreadsheet-inquire-HA102835926.aspx

Answer 5

Easy way: use 3rd sheet to check.

Say you want to find the differences between Sheet 1 and Sheet 2.

• Go to Sheet 3, cell A1, enter =IF(Sheet2!A1<>Sheet1!A1,"difference","") .
• Then select all cells of sheet 3, fill in, fill in on the right.
• Cells that differ from each other between sheet 1 and sheet 2 will now say "difference" in sheet 3.

You can customize the formula to display actual values ​​that were different.

Answer 6

you should try this free online tool - www.cloudyexcel.com/compare-excel/

works well most of the time, sometimes the results don't work a bit.

plus it also gives a good visual result

You can also download the results in excel format. (you need to register for this)

Answer 7

COUNTIF works well for quickly checking the difference. And it's easier to remember and easier to work than VLOOKUP .

 =COUNTIF([Book1]Sheet1!$A:$A, A1) 

will give you a column showing 1 if there is a match and zero if there is no match (with a display bonus> 1 for duplicates in the list itself).

Answer 8

If you have Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013, you can use Microsoft Spreadsheet Compare to run a report on the differences between the two books.

Run a spreadsheet comparison:

For Windows 7: From the Windows Start menu, under Office 2013 Tools, select Spreadsheet Comparison.

In Windows 8: From the Start screen, click Comparison Spreadsheets. If you don’t see the Spreadsheet Compare tile, start typing Spreadsheet Compare, and then select its tile.

Compare two Excel workbooks:

1. Click Home> Compare Files.
2. but. Click the blue folder icon next to the Compare box to find the location of an earlier version of your book. (In addition to the files stored on your computer or on the network, you can enter the web address of the site where your workbooks are stored.)
3. b. Click the green folder icon next to the To field to find the location of the book you want to compare with an earlier version, and then click OK. (TIP. You can compare two files with the same name if they are stored in different folders.)
4. In the left pane, select the options that you want to see in the results of a workbook comparison by checking or unchecking options such as formulas, macros, or cell format. Or just select everything.

Link:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Basic-tasks-in-Spreadsheet-Compare-f2b20af8-a6d3-4780-8011-f15b3229f5d8

Answer 9

Use the vlookup function.

Place both datasets in the same excel file on different sheets. Then, in the column next to rowset 805 (which I accept on sheet2), type

 =if(isna(vlookup(A1, Sheet1!$A$1:$A$800, 1, false)), 0, 1) 

The column will contain 0 for values ​​that are not found on another sheet, and 1 for values. You can sort the sheet to find all missing values.

Answer 10

I think your best option is a free application called Compare IT! .... an absolutely brilliant utility and dead easy to use. http://www.grigsoft.com/wincmp3.htm

Answer 11

SO actually that you use excel means you can use Microsoft's SpreadSheet Comparison . It is available in Office 2013. Yes, I know this question is older than 6 years. But who knows, maybe someone needs this information today.

Answer 12

Perhaps this repetition is too late. But hope will help someone find a solution.

What I did, I saved both excel files as a CSV file and compared it to Windiff.

Answer 13

ExcelDiff exports the HTML report as a split (side by side) or combined (overlay), emphasizing the differences, as well as a row and column.

Answer 14

Notepad ++ comparison plugin is great for this. Just save your sheets as .csv files and compare them in Notepad ++. Notepad ++ gives you a good visual analysis.

Answer 15

I used Excel Compare. This is paid software, but they have a 15-day trial. It will show the corrected lines, added lines and deleted lines. It will match the name of the worksheet (as an option):

http://www.formulasoft.com/excel-compare.html

Answer 16

Use conditional formatting to highlight excel differences.

Here is an example.

Answer 17

Only one data column for each pivot table comparison can provide much more information. In the image below, ColumnA is in Sheet1 (with a copy in Sheet2 for the image) and ColumnC in Sheet2. A source flag has been added on each sheet (columns B and D in the image). PT was created with several consolidation ranges ( Sheet1!$A$1:$B$15 and Sheet2!$C$1:$D$10 ):

In the numerical column on the left is what is present in Sheet1 (including q twice) and correctly that in Sheet2 (again with duplicates - c and d )). dl are in Sheet1, but not Sheet2 and w and z are in Sheet2 (excluding those that are only for the image), but not Sheet1. Add a Show grand totals for columns display and the final result appears.

Answer 18

I found this command line utility that does not show GUI output, but gave me what I needed: https://github.com/na-ka-na/ExcelCompare

Sample output (taken from the project readme file):

 > excel_cmp xxx.xlsx yyy.xlsx DIFF Cell at Sheet1!A1 => 'a' v/s 'aa' EXTRA Cell in WB1 Sheet1!B1 => 'cc' DIFF Cell at Sheet1!D4 => '4.0' v/s '14.0' EXTRA Cell in WB2 Sheet1!J10 => 'j' EXTRA Cell in WB1 Sheet1!K11 => 'k' EXTRA Cell in WB1 Sheet2!A1 => 'abc' EXTRA Cell in WB2 Sheet3!A1 => 'haha' ----------------- DIFF ------------------- Sheets: [Sheet1] Rows: [1, 4] Cols: [A, D] ----------------- EXTRA WB1 ------------------- Sheets: [Sheet1, Sheet2] Rows: [1, 11] Cols: [B, K, A] ----------------- EXTRA WB2 ------------------- Sheets: [Sheet1, Sheet3] Rows: [10, 1] Cols: [J, A] ----------------------------------------- Excel files xxx.xlsx and yyy.xlsx differ 

Answer 19

excel overlay will put both tables on top of each other (overlay them) and highlight the differences.

http://download.cnet.com/Excel-Overlay/3000-2077_4-10963782.html?tag=mncol