How can I stop excel reading special characters as the same

[Nikeyg]

Hi there

I have a spreadsheet that runs a reconciliation on multiple products, and to do this needs to operate a mapping table based on what my external data says compared to my internal data.
Now, my external data has two fields which I combine to form a single cell to reference against. So, for the examples I am using here it would take A- and C and create A-C and it would take A? and C and create A?C
The problem is that Excel considers A?C and A-C as the same, and when trying to map the products only takes one of these into consideration for both.

How can I get Excel to realise these characters are different for my mapping to work?

 

[jasonb75]

? is a wildcard character in many instances so it can be used as a substitute for any single character, if you want to specifically look for a ? then you need to precede it with the tilde character, i.e. ~?

 

[sandy666]

or use Power Query

 

[Nikeyg]

? is a wildcard character in many instances so it can be used as a substitute for any single character, if you want to specifically look for a ? then you need to precede it with the tilde character, i.e. ~?

Thank you!