Compare Two Strings Irrespective of the word Positions in Google Sheets

When comparing two strings in Google Sheets, using =A1=B1 only works if the strings match exactly—including the word order. But what if the words are the same, just arranged differently?

For example, you might want to match "blue red green" with "red green blue" and return TRUE.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to compare two strings to check if they contain the same words, regardless of their order. You’ll also learn how to optionally ignore filler words like "the", "and", or "vs" if needed.

Let’s explore two useful methods—one that considers all words, and another that skips filler words and punctuation during comparison.

Table of Contents

Example 1: Compare Two Strings Regardless of Word Order (All Words Considered)

This method checks if two strings contain the exact same words—no more, no less—regardless of their positions.

Sample Data

A	B	Match?
cat dog mouse	mouse cat dog	TRUE
blue green red	red green blue	TRUE
pen pencil	pencil pen box	FALSE

We’re comparing each string in column A with the corresponding string in column B.

Formula

=JOIN(" ", SORT(TOCOL(SPLIT(A1, " ")))) = JOIN(" ", SORT(TOCOL(SPLIT(B1, " "))))

Place this in cell C1 and drag it down.

Formula Breakdown

SPLIT(A1, " "): Splits the string into individual words.
TOCOL(...): Converts the output to a single column for proper sorting.
SORT(...): Sorts the list of words alphabetically.
JOIN(" ", ...): Rejoins the sorted words into a single normalized string.
The same steps are applied to cell B1, and the = operator checks for equality between the two processed strings.

Example 2: Compare Two Strings While Ignoring Filler Words

This method is useful when you want to compare strings by meaning—ignoring common filler words and punctuation.

Sample Data

A	B	Match?
The quick brown fox	quick fox brown	TRUE
A pencil and a pen	pen pencil	TRUE
Box of chocolates	chocolates box	TRUE
Brazil Vs Germany	Germany Vs Brazil	TRUE

You may need to tune the filler word list based on your use case.

Formula

=JOIN(" ", SORT(TOCOL(SPLIT(
  TRIM(REGEXREPLACE(
    REGEXREPLACE(LOWER(A1), "\b(a|an|and|are|as|at|be|but|by|for|from|has|have|if|in|into|is|it|its|of|on|or|that|the|to|was|were|with|vs|vs\.|v/s)\b[.,!?;:]*", ""),
    "[^\w\s]", "")
  ), " ")))) 
= 
JOIN(" ", SORT(TOCOL(SPLIT(
  TRIM(REGEXREPLACE(
    REGEXREPLACE(LOWER(B1), "\b(a|an|and|are|as|at|be|but|by|for|from|has|have|if|in|into|is|it|its|of|on|or|that|the|to|was|were|with|vs|vs\.|v/s)\b[.,!?;:]*", ""),
    "[^\w\s]", "")
  ), " "))))

Place this in cell C1 and drag it down.

Formula Breakdown

LOWER(A1): Converts text to lowercase for uniform comparison.
REGEXREPLACE(..., "\b(...)\b[.,!?;:]*", ""): Removes filler words and attached punctuation.
REGEXREPLACE(..., "[^\w\s]", ""): Removes any remaining special characters.
TRIM(...): Cleans up leading/trailing spaces.
SPLIT(...), TOCOL(...), SORT(...), JOIN(...): Same as the first example.
The processed strings from A1 and B1 are finally compared using =.

Tip: You can customize the filler word list in \b(...)\b to suit your context.

Summary

Use Case	Ignores Filler Words?	Matches Order?	Allows Extra Words?
Compare word sets exactly	❌ No	❌ No	❌ No
Compare by meaning (ignoring fillers)	✅ Yes	❌ No	❌ No