Comparison of text

[Richard Rosell]

I am using Excel 2003,

I download studnet exam grades from an onlne course web site and open it in
Excel in a text format. After computing studnet averages I save the
worksheet as an XLS documnet (no problem so far).

Later, I copy the data from this worksheet to a grade report (that contains
a list of studnet names) I receive from the college registrar that is also
an XLS document. I then use a formula (see below) to check that the names
on the sheet I recieved from the college line up with the names and data I
copied to it: Yet, for some reason even though the formula (as in the
example below) should produce "True", it consistently results in "False".
On the other hand, if I type the names rather than copying them to the
worksheet, the same formula produces the correct result: "True". I am
stumped as to why the copied data does not produce the correct result while
the typed data does.

I hope my description of the problem is clear.
Thanks for any help you might offer.


Example

A B C
1 Smith Smith False (Formula: =if(A1=B1, True, False)
2 Jones Jones False (same formula as above)
3 James James False

 

[andycat]

Does one of the columns have leading or trailing spaces? Try
TRIM(A1)=TRIM(B1).

 

[Richard Rosell]

Thanks, it did the trick.

RR
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