Open the Excel spreadsheet containing the columns you want to compare. Select the data in both columns, excluding the heading. In the Styles section in the Home tab, click on Conditional Formatting.

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Microsoft Excel comes with a lot of built-in functionality that doesn't restrict you to comparing data in two columns using only one method.

If you want to compare data in a side-by-side fashion, then we suggest using the Scenario Manager feature in Excel. You can also use it to swap multiple sets of data within a single worksheet.

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You load each worksheet into a table in Access and do a join query between/against the two. This will provide the intersection of the two lists.