HOW TO COMPARE TEXT FOR SIMILARITY

Introduction to Comparing Text

Improve your data comparison process in Google Sheets by identifying similar entries using fuzzy matching techniques with Flookup. Whether you are comparing short names or full sentences across multiple columns, Flookup lets you detect matches based on percentage similarity or semantic meaning.

To begin comparing text for similarity, go to Extensions > Flookup Data Wrangler > Data cleaning prep > Text comparison in your Google Sheets menu.

Fuzzy Similarity by Percentage

  1. Open the sidebar
    Go to Extensions > Flookup Data Wrangler > Data cleaning prep > Text comparison in your spreadsheet menu.
  2. Select the mode to run
    Choose character-level or word-level comparison from the drop-down menu.
  3. Select the Primary Range
    Highlight one or more columns and click Grab selected range.
  4. Select the Secondary Range
    Highlight another range and click Grab selected range.
  5. Specify the columns to compare
    Enter the Left_column and Right_column indices for the two ranges.
  6. Specify the output location
    Click an empty cell to mark where the results should appear.
  7. Calculate similarities
    Click the Get percentage similarities button.

Fuzzy Similarity by Text Meaning

To compare text by semantic meaning, please see our Flookup AI page.

For the Visual Learners

Labels might differ slightly but the steps are the same.

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