How do I compare two columns in Excel to find if there is corresponding data?

Question

How do I compare two Excel sheets to detect whether the data in column B of sheet 2 appears in column A of sheet 1?

Answer 1

use Match() built-in function

for example

if your data looks like this

  | Column A   | Column B
----------------------------
1 |  number1   |  number1
2 |  number2   |  number7
3 |  number3   |
4 |  number4   |
5 |  number5   |

then stick the below formula in column C

=MATCH(B1,$A$1:$A$5,0)

and if there is a match you will get 1 in column C, if there is no match an #N/A. You can wrap around the match function to display a custom message. But I think the above answers your question.