Identical visual values but the formula isn’t seeing them as identical

Hello,

I wonder if somebody could explain why this might be happening......

With the help from posters on this site, i've been given a great couple of formulas that help me match addresses bewteen two seperate sheets.

What i've noticed, is that the 'poscode/zipcode field' can be the same on both sheets, creating a match but the formula for some reason doesn't see the match.

I've made sure that the cells are formatted the same by using the format painter option in both cells but still no match.

However once i copy and paste from one sheet to the other, the formula works.

Any ideas why visually the data is exactly the same but for what ever reason the formula isn't seeing them as matching values??

Many Thanks

Sorry, i've attached the spreadsheet as my explaination above wasn't very clear.

On sheet 1 (Accountant) the postcode of highlighted row is the same as the postcode that is shown on Sheet 2 (Companies).

However the formual in column F on the 'Companies' tab isn't working is this particular instance.

If you copy the cell E4 from 'Accountant' tab to the cell E3 on 'Companies' tab the formula does work.

but the value hasn't changed.

Hope that makes more sense than my 1st posting.

Thanks
PW