Matching 'Similar' Lists... Difficult!

[jamesc1987]

Hi Everybody,

Appreciate any help you can give with me this.. I'm something of an excel newb so please bare that in mind if the answer to my question is complex!!

I have two data bases, one is a list of 9000 names (which I can manipulate to give first name, second name in separate cells if necessary). The other is a list of 9000 email addresses.

I would like to arrange the data so that if an email address contains one or more of the names, it moves next to it. For example John Smith in one data base would be matched to john.smith@hotmail.com, or J.smith@aol.co.uk in the other database.

I'm thinking excel might be able to look through the two data sets, find where 5 or more characters (in the correct order) from each cell match up, and then order the data so that it is visible to me.. is this possible?

Thanks!

 

[chirp]

does something like this help at all?

fuzzy match