lookup, count

Hi all

1. is there a function to count the characters in a cell?
i.e. if I had the word "abra44" in cell A1 the function would return 6
2. I haveto match up words from column A to words in row 1
but its not an exact match, I need the last 5 letters of the values in row 1
ignored.
ie. i need to match up

abc

to a value in array of

abd 12345
abc 12345
abf 12345

To answer your first question: try the LEN() function

abra44 in cell A1
=LEN(A1) gives 6

As for your 2nd question: ??

Yes - it is the text function =LEN(A1)

Not sure what you mean by "match up". You can use the LEFT function on
abd1235, etc. such as =LEFT(A5,3) .. or maybe =LEFT(A5,LEN(A5)-5), then you
can do your matching, or you can sort the entire range by the column which
contains the shortened strings.



"Stan Altshuller" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Hi all
>
> 1. is there a function to count the characters in a cell?
> i.e. if I had the word "abra44" in cell A1 the function would return 6
> 2. I haveto match up words from column A to words in row 1
> but its not an exact match, I need the last 5 letters of the values in row
1
> ignored.
> ie. i need to match up
>
> abc
>
> to a value in array of
>
> abd 12345
> abc 12345
> abf 12345
>
>
>
>
>