Help with excel!

i assume by list A and B u mean columns A and B. lets say your lists start at A1 and B1

in C1 put =COUNTIF(B:B,A1) and then drag it all the way to the last data point. every item in A that is in B will have a 1 next to it. if it doesnt, it will have a 0

now select columns B and C and click Data then Sort

click No Headers, sort by Column C, click Descending

now all the 1s should be on top and the 0s on the bottom. delete all the data points in B next to the Zeros, and the two lists A and B should have the same companies

i did something like this at work today. i just typed this up from memory, hope it works out

thats amazing

another way to do it would be using a vlookup

insert a column next to the shorter list. put a yes next to each name. then insert a column in the longer list and use the vlookup function to to match the names, bringing the yes value over to your longer list for the matches. hard code all the values in the vlookup column. the "yes" values will be your matches. sort and erase the non matches.

Why not throw in a few INDIRECT, REPLACE, SUMIF and some ISERRORs for good measure? Then read the question again.

The answer is to delete list B, copy list A and then paste it where list B was.

not necessarily. list A could have the Fortune 500, List B could have 400 of the Fortune 500 plus another 200 random companies no one's heard of. If you answer op's post correctly, you'd only have the 400 F500 companies left in list B... While the vlookup may not seem the easiest or most intuitive for a simple application like this, it's really useful in a wide variety of situations and familiarity with that function is helpful beyond words