[ichthuso1]

Here's what i'm dealing with:

Openfiledialoge1 loads excel file and adds it line by line into the excelnames listbox.
I have two list boxes: medianames which are the names provided, and DatabaseName which has our list of names.
The if statement should check the list of names in excelnames, and if there is a match in the "medianames" it replaces it with the respective index from "databasenames"
The last piece compares this excelnames list (now updated) to a master list (mlnames), and adds names to another listbox (namesleftlb) if the excelnames item is NOT found in the master list.

        excelnames.Items.Clear()

'opening file

        With OpenFileDialog1
            .ShowReadOnly = False
            .Filter = "All Files|*.*|Excel Files (*)|*;*.xls;*.xlsx"
            .FilterIndex = 2
            If .ShowDialog = DialogResult.OK Then
                APP1 = New Excel.Application
                workbook1 = APP1.Workbooks.Open(.FileName)
                worksheet1 = workbook1.Worksheets("sheet1")
            End If
        End With

'adding contents of excel to excelnames listbox (i think the problem stems from here)

        Dim objRange As Excel.Range
        For intLoopCounter = 1 To CInt(worksheet1.Cells.SpecialCells(Excel.XlCellType.xlCellTypeLastCell).Row)
            objRange = worksheet1.Range("A" & intLoopCounter)
            excelnames.Items.Add(objRange.Value.Trim.ToUpper())
        Next intLoopCounter

'replacing names in excelnames with comparison rule

        Dim i As Integer
        Dim az As Integer
        For i = 0 To MediaName.Items.Count() - 1
            az = excelnames.FindStringExact(MediaName.Items(i))
            If az > -1 Then
                Dim strinput As String
                strinput = DatabaseName.Items(i)
                excelnames.Items.RemoveAt(excelnames.FindStringExact(MediaName.Items(i)))
                excelnames.Items.Insert(0, strinput)
            End If
        Next

'comparing excelnames to masterlist

        namesleftlb.Items.Clear()
        namesleftlb.Items.AddRange(excelnames.Items.Cast(Of String).Except(mlnames.Items.Cast(Of String)).ToArray)
        namesleftlb.SelectedIndex = 0

I ran a hard coded list through the paces and the replacement if statement worked, I'm assuming I have something loaded as a string array or something when I pull the file from excel but this part is beyond me and would appreciate suggestions. Thanks

[ichthuso1]

Fixed... apparently at some point there were a ton of spaces added to the string of each line. Nothing some trim's didn't fix. Thanks

[BobRodes]

Thanks for posting your fix.