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How to apply fuzzy lookup to find approximate match result in Excel?

Sometimes, we not only need to do exactly lookup, but also want to do a fuzzy lookup as below screenshot shown. Actually, in Excel, the Find and Replace function somewhat help you for fuzzy lookup.

Fuzzy lookup by Find and Replace

Fuzzy lookup one value or multiple values with a handy tool

Sample file


Fuzzy lookup by Find and Replace

Supposing you have a range A1:B6 as below screenshot shown, you want to fuzzy lookup string “apple” without case insensitive or the “app” in this range. You can apply the Find and Replace feature to handle the job.
doc fuzzy lookup 1

Look up in non-case sensitive

1. Select the range you want to look up, press Ctrl + F keys to enable the Find and Replace function, type the string you want to look up in the Find what textbox.
doc fuzzy lookup 02

2. Click Options to expand the dialog, uncheck Match case option, but check Match entire cell contents option.
doc fuzzy lookup 03

3. Click Find All, the strings not in case sensitive have been listed.
doc fuzzy lookup 04

Look up part of string

1. Select range and press Ctrl + F keys to enable the Find and Replace function, and type the part string you want to look up in the Find what textbox, uncheck Match entire cell contents option, if you need also can uncheck Match case.
doc fuzzy lookup 05

2. Click Find All, the cells which contain the string have been listed.
doc fuzzy lookup 06


Fuzzy lookup one value or multiple values with a handy tool

If you need to lookup one values approximately or find out all approximate values at the same time, you can use the Fuzzy Lookup feature of Kutools for Excel.

Kutools for Excel, with more than 300 handy functions, makes your jobs more easier. 

After free installing Kutools for Excel, please do as below:

Lookup one value approximately

Supposing you want to lookup a value “app” in range A1:A7, but the number of different characters cannot be more than 2, and the number of characters must be large than 1.
doc fuzzy lookup 07

1. Click Kutools > Find > Fuzzy Lookup to enable the Fuzzy Lookup pane.
doc fuzzy lookup 08

2. In the popping pane, do as these:

1) Select the range you used to find, you can check Specified to fix the searching range.

2) Check Find by specified text checkbox.

3) Type the value you want to fuzzy search based on in the Text textbox.

4) Specify the searching criteria as you need.
doc fuzzy lookup 09

3. Click Find button, then click the down arrow to expand the list to view the searching results.
doc fuzzy lookup 10

Fuzzy lookup multiple values

Supposing you want to find all approximate values in a range A1:B7, you can do as below:
doc fuzzy lookup 11

1. Click Kutools > Find > Fuzzy Lookup to enable the Fuzzy Lookup pane.

2. In the Fuzzy Lookup pane, select the searching range, and then specify the searching criteria as you need.
doc fuzzy lookup 12

3. Click Find button to go to the searching result view, then click down arrow to expand the list.
doc fuzzy lookup 13


Quickly split data into multiple worksheets based on column or fixed rows in Excel

Supposing you have a worksheet that has data in columns A to G, the salesman’s name is in column A and you need to automatically split this data into multiple worksheets based on the column A in the same workbook and each salesman will be splitted into a new worksheet. Kutools for Excel’s Split Data utility can help you to quickly split data into multiple worksheets based on selected column as below screenshot shown in Excel.  Click for 60 days free trial!
doc split data 2
 
Kutools for Excel: with more than 300 handy Excel add-ins, free to try with no limitation in 30 days.

Sample file

Click to download sample file


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Excel batch find and replace specific text in hyperlinks
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Apply the reverse find or search function in Excel
Generally, we can apply the Find or Search function to look for a specific text from left to right in a text string by a specific delimiter. If you need to reverse the find function to look for the word starting at the end of a string as following screenshot shown, how could you do?


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