Duplicates- Conditional Formatting

Duplicates

In Excel 2007, it is easy to remove duplicates.

• Select your data
• Click on the Data tab
• Click Remove Duplicates

Easy..Peasy.. but sometimes you might actually want to look at what Excel is removing but Excel only tells you how many duplicates were removed - it doesn't show them to you.

 

You can easily identify duplicates and/or unique values using Excel 2007's Conditional Formatting. 

Using the basics of conditional formatting merely formats the duplicate cells. In this case, it formats both the original and any other instances of it.

 

 

You select your data, and then select Conditional Formatting on the Home Tab.
Select Highlight Cell Rules and then select Duplicates.
A dialog box comes up for you to select a fill/highlight color for the duplicates.

 An alternative method:

You can also select New Rule and then select Format only unique or duplicate values which is an alternative way to get to the same place.

There is actually a lot of 'stuff" on duplicates as it is a problem everyone faces so perhaps I will continue this conversation tomorrow.