Find similar yet misspelled values in Excel

Fuzzy Duplicate Finder is a tool for Microsoft Excel 2019 - 2010 that helps you find and correct similar records. The add-in quickly performs approximate match according to the settings you select and changes all typos into the correct equivalents of your choice.

How to use the Find Fuzzy Duplicates tool

Start Find Fuzzy Duplicates

Open the add-in pane by clicking on the Find Fuzzy Duplicates icon in the Duplicate Remover drop-down list on the Ablebits Data tab, Dedupe group:
Find Fuzzy Duplicates on the Ablebits Data tab.
This tool is also available in the Search group under the Ablebits Tools tab: select the option to Search for Typos in the Find and Replace drop-down list:
Find Fuzzy Duplicates on the Ablebits Tools tab.

Configure searching options

There are some settings that you need to tweak to get more precise results:
A couple of options will help you achieve the best result.

  1. Select the search range in your table and you will see its address in the Select range field at the top.
    Tip. If you want to find fuzzy duplicates in a single column, select this column or any cell in that column. To fuzzy match within several Excel columns or any block of cells, select them.
  2. Сlick the Expand selection icon and have the entire table selected automatically.
  3. Fine-tune the way typos are found:
    • You can limit the differences to look for using the Max number of different characters field. Simply set from 1 to 10 characters in which the searched entries will differ.
      Note. The bigger the number, the more different values you are likely to get.
    • Use the Min number of characters in a word/cell option to exclude short values from the search. Set from 1 to 50 characters and the words or cells that have fewer characters will not be searched within.
  4. If your cells can contain more than one word, take advantage of The cells contain separate words delimited by option. Tick it, and the add-in will check words within your cells.
    Tip. You can also select or enter delimiters that separate the words in your cells. A space " " is set by default. Choose from a standard set of separators in the drop-down list of the Delimiters field or enter your own.

    Enter delimiters or choose one from the list.

Get the result

Press the Search for typos button and the add-in will perform approximate matching in Excel. All found items will be grouped by duplicates (nodes) in the tool's tree view:
See all found matches in the tree pane.

How to work with found fuzzy matches

Correct all misprints in the duplicate node

  1. Select a node and expand the group. To set the correct value to all similar records, click on the Check icon in the Action column on the line with the correct entry. This value will be automatically assigned to all items of the node and you will see it in the Correct Value column:
    Find the right value in the list and set it as correct.
  2. If the node doesn't contain the right entry, click on the root node and type in the correct value manually. To finish up, press Enter on your keyboard:
    You can type in the necessary value in the Correct Value column.
  3. Once the correct word is chosen, click the Apply button at the bottom of the add-in pane. The color of the records will change to blue and the found records will be corrected in your Excel worksheet:
    See the misprints corrected in both, your data and the add-in's pane.

Keep the case of the same values in the node

If you have several correct values in your node that differ in case, you may want to keep their original case or make them all look the same.

Tick the Keep case of the same values in the node option at the top to leave the items that differ only in case unchanged.

So, if you have "Street, street, street, and Streett" in the results and you consider only the value as a misprint, not the case, then select this option and the "street" value will keep its case.

Note. If you don't tick this option, the case of the value chosen as correct will be applied to all fuzzy lookup results automatically.

Remove fuzzy duplicates

If you want to remove an entry from the list of found duplicates, just select it and press the Delete button on your keyboard. Or, you can select several items by holding the Ctrl key and delete them all at once.

Note. The entry will not be removed from the worksheet.

You can remove similar data from your Excel worksheet if necessary. Just click on the value you want to delete in the list of found items. The cell with this value will be automatically highlighted in Excel worksheet, so you can select it in your table and press the Delete button on your keyboard.

Export the search results

To see the found similar records in a separate Excel worksheet, click the Export button on the Fuzzy Duplicate Finder pane.

This option may be helpful if you want to see the changes in the nodes before applying them.

Tip. To export several nodes, select them by holding the Ctrl key and click Export.

To do a new fuzzy match, click New Search at the top of the Fuzzy Duplicate Finder pane with the results.