Excel 2000 in a Nutshell

Name

EXACT

Synopsis

Use EXACT to compare two different text strings to determine if they are identical. The function returns a value of TRUE if the strings are the same; otherwise it returns a value of FALSE.

Note

When the function compares the text strings it makes sure they are exactly the same including the case. For example, if one word is all caps and the other is lowercase the function will return a value of FALSE.

To Calculate

=Exact(Text1, Text2)

Both arguments are required for this function.

Text1

Indicates a string of text. The string can be text, numbers, or references to single cells.

Text2

Indicates a string of text. The string can be text, numbers, or references to single cells.

Example

Figure 18-4 illustrates how to use EXACT to compare text strings in two different cells. You will notice that although the cells contain the same words the function returned a value of FALSE because the letters were not the same case (cell A2 is in uppercase). The function also shows how to use FIND to determine the character position of one string within another string.

Figure 18-4. Use EXACT to compare two text strings and FIND to determine the location of one string within another