Identify approximate text matches

[thekaoboy]

I have a long list of company names and I want to eliminate approximate matches.

For example, my list includes the following:

CENTAURUS ENERGY MASTER FUND L.P.
Centaurus Financial
Centaurus Financial Inc.
Centech Group

In this case, I would want to identify "Centaurus Financial" and "Centaurus Financial Inc." as the same but the others should be considered different. I realize that I will have to review the list manually afterwards.

I have the Fuzzy Lookup add-on from Microsoft but since I am comparing a list to itself, every item on the list produces a 100% match and then any approximate match gets matched up with the other one. For example, "Centaurus Financial" gets fuzzy-matched with "Centaurus Financial Inc." and vice-versa, whereas I want to be able to say both companies are close but not exact.

I have always appreciated this forum's help. Thank you!

 

[Akuini]

First of all, I think you have better chance to do this in Word than in Excel. Word is more capable in dealing with text than excel.
You need to find the “pattern” that frequently appear. Such as what words makes a company names looks different, for ex: Inc, Co, Ltd etc. Is it always located in the end or could be in the beginning or in the middle?
So if you can post more sample of your actual data, that would be a good start.
And how many rows of data do you have?

 

[thekaoboy]

Thanks for your response. Yes, the variation in the name usually comes at the end but there are several of these variations (e.g., LLC vs. L.LC., or INC vs. Inc vs. Inc.) but there could be variations in the middle (e.g., A&B vs. A & B, vs A and B). My list is over 200,000 lines long.

 

[Akuini]

Well, looks like the ‘patern’ will be too complicated (for me). I’m sorry, I don’t think I can help you here. Maybe someone else here can.
That being said, this forum is specialized in Excel. I think you may want to post your problem to other similar forum that has Word section, you can google it. (I can provide you a link but I’m not sure the rules here, is it ok to mention another forum here?).