How to compare two text strings in Excel

If you need to compare two text strings in Excel to determine if they’re equal, you can use the EXACT function.

Formula

=EXACT(text1, text2)

Explanation

For example, if you want to compare A2 with B2, use:

=EXACT(A2,B2)

If the two strings are identical, EXACT will return TRUE. If not, EXACT will return FALSE. You can use this result inside the IF function to display a message or make a conditional calculation. For example, to display the message “Yes” for a match and “No” if not, use:

=IF(EXACT(A2,B2),"Yes","No")

Note the EXACT function is case sensitive. If you don’t care about case, you can simply use the equal sign like so:

=A2=B2

Visit: Case-sensitive and case-insensitive ways to Compare Text in Excel examples.

This formula will return TRUE or FALSE, and will treat “Apple” and “apple” as the same.