Excel 2024: Use Fuzzy Match in Power Query


November 18, 2024 - by

Excel 2024: Use Fuzzy Match in Power Query

There's a research and development team at Microsoft known as Microsoft Labs. Almost 10 years ago, it invented a free Fuzzy Match add-in for Excel. A fuzzy matching algorithm looks for words that share a percentage of characters in common.

The figure below shows two data sets that need to be matched. Columns A and B contain the list of employees. Columns D and E contain the names of the employees who filled out a required form. You need to identify the people who haven't yet returned the form. Unfortunately, a VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP won't work since column A uses a 'last name, first name' format while column D contains a nickname and last name. These two data sets can be matched using the Fuzzy Match tool that's now built into Windows versions of Microsoft 365.

continue reading »

More Reading


Excel 2024: Clean Data with Power Query

Excel 2024: Clean Data with Power Query »

November 14, 2024 - by Bill Jelen


Power Query is built in to Windows versions of Office 365, Excel 2016, Excel 2019 and is available as a free download in Windows versions of Excel 2010 and Excel 2013. The tool is designed to extract, transform, and load data into Excel from a variety of sources.

Excel 2024: Improve Your Macro Recording

Excel 2024: Improve Your Macro Recording »

November 11, 2024 - by Bill Jelen


I loved the 1985 version of the Macro Recorder in Lotus 1-2-3. The code was hard to understand, but it worked. There are some defaults in the Excel Macro Recorder that cause misery for anyone trying to record macros. Here are three tips to make the macro experience possibly better.

Excel 2024: Interpolate between a starting and ending number

Excel 2024: Interpolate between a starting and ending number »

November 7, 2024 - by Bill Jelen


How to interpolate between a starting and ending number.

read more articles »

Featured Products


Microsoft Excel Pivot Table Data Crunching (Office 2021 and Microsoft 365)

December 2021

Use Microsoft 365 Excel and Excel 2021 pivot tables and pivot charts to produce powerful, dynamic reports in minutes: take control of your data and your business!


Cool Excel Sh*t

March 2021

Cool Excel Sh*t is designed with the Excel guru in mind, introducing advanced, creative solutions and hacks for the software's most challenging problems.


MrExcel 2022 Boosting Excel

April 2022

The 6th Edition of MrExcel XL, updated with new functions released for Microsoft 365.


Microsoft Excel Inside Out (Office 2021 and Microsoft 365)

December 2021

Dive Into Microsoft Excel for Office 2021 and Microsoft 365 and really put your spreadsheet expertise to work. This supremely well-organized reference packs hundreds of timesaving solutions, tips, and workaroundsall you need to make the most of Excels most powerful tools for analyzing data and making better decisions.


see more products »