Forum Discussion
Partial text match and display between columns
Is there a way to find partial text matches and display them in a new column? If "column" was an entry in the first column and "alumni" was an entry in the second, the partial match would be "lumn". ...
I suspect that what you're asking may well be possible via some elaborate VBA routine--and I'd not be the person to write that--but whoever might would surely need to see more definition of what you're seeking first. Exact matches (whole field with whole field) are easy. It's the partial matches that need some clarification.
- For starters, what minimum or maximum length of character strings would qualify? You're surely looking for at least two characters, since shorter strings would hardly be meaningful. But I'd think even longer than two. So what would be a useful minimum? What would be a realistic maximum?
- What will be the nature of the fields being compared? Full sentences? Single words? Phrases?
- And if I can ask this without sounding impertinent: what is the actual bigger purpose served? What's the context or purpose to which the successful completion of this task will contribute? It's an important question because there might conceivably be a different way to accomplish that larger task, so it would be helpful to know that bigger picture.