compare two set of columns in two excel worksheets in same workbook

Question

Sheet1

+------+-------+
|  ID  | Name  |
+------+-------+
| 1245 | James |
| 9377 | Jacob |
| 6201 | David |
| .    | .     |
| .    | .     |
| .    | .     |
+------+-------+

Sheet2

+------+-------+
|  ID  | Name  |
+------+-------+
| 1245 | James |
| 9007 | Adam  |
| 9377 | Jacob |
| 6201 | David |
| .    | .     |
| .    | .     |
| .    | .     |
+------+-------+

In theory, both sheets are carbon copy of each other with the exception that Sheet2 have additional data. Sheet1 contains 10000 rows and Sheet2 contains 15000. How do I do a comparison between both worksheets to show/highlight the 5000 distinct rows in Sheet2?

Answer 1

For tasks like this I use a adodb recordset to store what was on the first sheet. Then i read up the second sheet and look to see if it was on the first.

In you VBA IDE go to the tools menu and select references. Select "Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects 2.8 Library."

Dim rs As New ADODB.Recordset
Dim ws As Excel.Worksheet
Dim lRow As Long

    Set ws = Application.ActiveSheet

    'Add fields to your recordset for storing data.  You can store sums here.
    With rs
        .Fields.Append "Row", adInteger
        .Fields.Append "ID", adInteger
        .Fields.Append "NAME", adChar, 50
        .Open
    End With

    lRow = 1

    'Loop through and record what is in the first sheet
    Do While lRow <= ws.UsedRange.Rows.count

        rs.AddNew
        rs.Fields("Row").Value = lRow
        rs.Fields("ID").Value = ws.Range("A" & lRow).Value
        rs.Fields("NAME").Value = ws.Range("B" & lRow).Value
        rs.Update

        lRow = lRow + 1
        ws.Range("A" & lRow).Activate
    Loop

    'Switch to the second worksheet
    Set ws = Nothing
    Set ws = ActiveWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet2")
    ws.Activate

    'Loop through and compare to what was on the first column
    lRow = 1
    Do While lRow <= ws.UsedRange.Rows.count

        rs.Filter = ""
        rs.Filter = "ID=" & ws.Range("A" & lRow).Value
        If rs.RecordCount = 0 Then
             'We don't have a match, color the row
             Rows(lRow).Interior.Color = vbBlue
        End If

        lRow = lRow + 1
        ws.Range("A" & lRow).Activate
    Loop

Answer 2

You can just use the following function on Sheet2 to lookup Sheet2 's values and see if they exist on Sheet1 :

=IF(COUNTIFS(A2,Sheet1!A:A,B2,Sheet1!B:B)>0,"","X")

This is assuming you enter the formula in C2 on Sheet2 . COUNTIFS() just checks Sheet1 for the ID and Name and returns the number of rows found that match. If we find it, we don't care ( "" ). If we don't find it, then it's exclusive to Sheet2 and we'll mark it with an "X" .

Of course, you can do this in VBA as well:

With Sheet2.Range("C2:C" & Sheet2.UsedRange.Rows.Count)
    .Formula = "=IF(COUNTIFS(A2,Sheet1!A:A,B2,Sheet1!B:B)>0,"""",""X"")"
    .Value = .Value ' (If you want to remove the formula)
End With