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Excel Magic Trick 323: Partial Text VLOOKUP (Fuzzy Match)

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Uploaded by on May 8, 2009

Two formulas: VLOOKUP function with wild card criteria for the lookup_value and LOOKUP / SEARCH functions formula with 2^15 number. See what happens when there are duplicates: the two formulas behave differently (VLOOKUP returns first and LOOKUP SEARCH returns last).

From Mr Excel Message Board

Fuzzy Match

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Uploader Comments (ExcelIsFun)

  • If the first name and Lst name has spelling errors or space errors will it be possible to apply vlookup

  • @zaance26 , Fuzzy Lookup will never work perfectly and will not always work with misspelled words. It may work ocassionally and other times it will not work. There is just no wway that will work 100% of the time with Fuzzy Math.

  • Excellent vid and, subsequently, I found I can use the 1st wildcard method ("*"&A1&"*") to VLOOKUP A NUMBER (exact match) within a string of numbers when the 1st column in the table array is a concatenated list of numbers seperated by commas. I.E. I can vlookup 54321 from a concatenated cell that contains 12345, 23451, 54321. etc

  • Cool! I am glad the video had some use.

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  • Thank you Mike...

  • Does it work for numbers? I used my formula on my own spreadsheet, but didn't work.

    Can you check your private message. I sent you a link that i post on Mrexcel.

  • I am glad it helped!

  • @ExcelIsFun brilliant, thanks..........great explanation to each part of the formula too!

  • Tru this video:

    Mr Excel & excelisfun Trick 54: Approximate Lookup To Return Multiple Items

  • how would you display more than 2 results - you have shown the first result and also the last result but what if there were 12 enteries that contained the text 'don' or 'cable and wireless'? I have a sheet where i want the user to be able to search 'jacket' and it should display all the different types of jacket we have. Can anyone help, i'll provide .xls file for example if you want. Thanks alot.

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