By streamlining the data analysis process, Google Sheets has made a major impact on how people analyze their data. Instead of spending long hours manually comparing and contrasting two columns of information, Google Sheets provides an expansive set of features that can do it all for you – instantaneously. With the right formulas, you can quickly spot info that is the same or different across columns and even identifies duplicates. Whether you’re looking to track changes in multiple sets of data or just need to double-check before making a key decision, this tutorial will walk you through exactly what you need to know to compare two columns in Google sheets quickly and accurately – and save hours along the way.
How to Compare Two Columns in Google Sheets?
Luckily, Google Sheets offers a wide array of tools and features that makes cross-column comparisons fast and easy. With the right formulas, you can generate an array of useful results in seconds.
Method 1: Using the Equals Sign
The easiest way to find out if the values in your columns are equal is to use the equals sign. If the content of a cell in one column is equal to the value of the second argument of the formula, then we will get TRUE as a result. Otherwise, the answer is FALSE.
=A1=B1
Important! You can also check column values from different tables. Only for this do you need to use the IMPORTRANGE function, which we have already described earlier.
Method 2: IF function
A much more functional solution, as it allows you to find out not only the correspondence of values but also their differences. For example, you can set: if the value is greater or less than the second.
=IF(A1=B1,”Good”,”Bad”)
Also, nothing prevents changing the condition to A1>B1.
Important! You can perform multiple comparisons without getting any output by simply highlighting the cells accordingly. Read more about conditional formatting in our article. There is another function for searching – VLOOKUP. We also have relevant material about it.
Conclusion
The main comparison functions are listed above. Everything else is just a more complex version of them. Gradually expanding your knowledge, you will be able not only to compare two columns in Google Sheets but also to perform fairly complex operations with large amounts of data in a few clicks. Subscribe to us and we will tell you about many more interesting features and capabilities of Google Sheets.
