Microsoft Office Excel can be used to create simple to highly complex spreadsheets in order to organize and analyze data. You may find the need to export data to Excel from another source or you may be working with an extensive spreadsheet that may contain duplicate data.
To check your Excel spreadsheet for duplicates, use the Conditional Formatting feature that will help find and highlight duplicate entries in your spreadsheet. This may be especially relevant if you track your business revenues and expenses via a spreadsheet. (Note: these steps are for the 2007 version of Excel; other versions may have variations).
• Launch Microsoft Office Excel
• Select the rows or columns where there may be duplicate entries. Point your mouse in the first cell and hold/drag over the contents of the row or column.
• Click the “Home” tab.
• Click the “Conditional Formatting” tab located in the “Styles” section of your toolbar/top menu.
• Select “Highlight Cells Rules” from the drop-down menu.
• Click on “Duplicate Values”
• Select “Duplicate” under “Format cells that contain:” in the dialog box
• Select the highlighting style form the drop down menu in the dialog box. Styles include various fill and text color options.
• Click “OK”. All duplicate values will be highlighted in the row or column of your spreadsheet
You can then review the highlighted cells to determine if the data should be removed or retained.
