Can excel macro access SUBstring individual 'char' level? If so how?

[bxc2739]

If possible I'd like to compare only the first character of each of th
customer name fields.
Sometimes the customers go by acrynoms and sometimes the name is full
spelled out. So
to avoid a false negative it is more safe to search/filter by the firs
character of the beginning of the
word/name only. Does excel macro allow substring functionality? If I a
to comparing the first char of the name
field of each sheet how to I access this, what is the syntax fo
accessing & comparing substring characters??

This shouldn't be too difficult (to use a marco to compare two field
at a time for matching) but I don't know
how to write the code.

I have two sheets 1 & 2. I’m to match customers from sheet 2 to 1.

I want to match by zip code and by name. If zip AND name of row(x) i
sheet 2
Matches with zip AND name of ANY of the 5000+ row(s) in sheet 1 the
highlight row(x) in sheet2. (to indicate a match)
If no match are found, then do nothing, and move on to next row o
sheet2 until all rows of sheet2 are finished comparing to the sheet1.

Basically I need to compare TWO fields simultaneiously, (double match
per row to the respective TWO fields with the second sheet I a
comparing too. If both criteria are meet then it is a match. Otherwis
it is left alone/ignored. I want to do this for all 35000+ rows in m
sheet2 which will take a long time without the help of a macro. Bot
the sheet to be worked on (sheet 2) and the sheet that exists only fo
comparison (sheet1) are huge and have many entries.

What I need to do now is the second step: How do I compare AT THE SAM
TIME both the ZIP CODE (numeric) AND the CUSTOMER NAM
(string/character/word) of sheet2 to the Zip and Name of sheet1.??

Do I need a nested FOR LOOP or a seperate for Loop after the firs
one??
How shall I go about coding this? I've tried a lot of things but i
never works.

 

[roadkill]

If you don't mind adding a few columns, you should be able to do this without
macros.

Add 2 columns to the big (35,000) row sheet. Let's say columns A and B.
- in the first, put "=left(C1,1) & D1" where C1 refers to the name column
(the 1 in the left function refers to the number of characters from the name
that will be used) in this same row and D1 refers to the zip code
- in the second put in consecutive number (1, 2, 3, ... so that each row is
identified by a number). This will let you tell what row matched up.

Add one column to the other sheet and put in a vlookup function to find the
match. It should look something like:

"=vlookup(left(J1,1) & K1,Sheet2!$A$1:$B$35000,2,0)" where columns J and K
have the name and the zip code on this sheet

The result will be either a number corresponding to the row that matches or
else "#N/A" to indicate not found.

Will