VLOOKUP or other function to ignore special characters to determine match/potential match

[shdwfx]

We have a spreadsheet with what are alleged document titles and then a repository of the same docs. A VLOOKUP returns only a 60% match. Example as to why would be that the title is "....Setup..." while the document contains "Set - up". Is there any magic trick for this?

I have used the LEFT function to get a match on say the first 20 characters, then 15, etc. but due to the volume, I'm hoping for a better solution?

Many thanks for looking.

Michele

 

[gbutton]

Sorry in advance for a sloppy answer, but I figured I'd do my best to help while waiting for my own answer.

Check response #4 on this thread: http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/excel-...-characters-without-using-macros-script.html#

Use that custom function to clean both columns of all non alpha numeric characters.

Do a vlookup between the two clean columns and you should be able to get a higher success rate.

 

[shdwfx]

The complication, I think, is that the actual documents that are being searched to match up the the titles we flagged as needed to be pulled is not in an Excel format. Now what format that data is in, I don't know. However, thank you for the lead. I will take a look. Much appreciated.