EXACT

Excel Functions

Compare two text strings

Syntax

EXCEL

=EXACT(text1, text2)

Arguments

Parameter	Description
`text1`	The first text string to compare.
`text2`	The second text string to compare.

Return Value

A boolean value (TRUE or FALSE)

Details

The EXACT function compares two text strings in a case-sensitive manner. If the two strings are exactly the same, EXACT returns TRUE. If the two strings are not the same (taking into account upper and lower case) EXACT returns FALSE. The EXACT function takes two arguments, text1 and text2, which should be valid text strings. If these values are entered directly into the function, they should be enclosed in double quotes (""). Below are two examples of the EXACT function used with hardcoded strings. In the first example, the strings are identical, in the second example, the only difference is the capital "A": In the example shown, the formula in D6, copied down the column, is: You can also use a normal equals sign (=) in a formula, but the comparison is not case sensitive:

Examples

Below are two examples of the EXACT function used with hardcoded strings. In the first example, the strings are identical, in the second example, the

EXCEL

=EXACT("apple","apple") // returns TRUE
=EXACT("Apple","apple") // returns FALSE

Examples

In the example shown, the formula in D6, copied down the column, is:

EXCEL

=EXACT(B6,C6)

Examples

You can also use a normal equals sign (=) in a formula, but the comparison is not case sensitive:

EXCEL

=("Apple"="apple") // returns TRUE

Examples

To count cells that contain specific text, taking into account upper and lower case characters, you can combine EXACT together with the SUMPRODUCT fun

EXCEL

=SUMPRODUCT(--EXACT(value,range))