crossreferencing duplicate entries

[Zach Gold]

Hi,

Haven't used Excel much, so I'm trying to find out how to do something that
I imagine is very simple.

I have a list of addresses and I want to filter it so I get only entries
that have two categories that exactly match another entry (for instance last
name and zip code) so that I can delete duplicate addresses.

Any ideas how I would go about doing something like this? Any help would be
appreciated. Thanks!

-Zach

 

[Bernard Liengme]

Visit Chip's site at www.cpearson.com
He has lots on duplicates
best wishes

 

[Zach Gold]

Thanks, that is very helpful.

It says I can use conditional formatting with the formula
=COUNTIF($B$2:$B$11,B2)>1 to highlight duplicates in one category.

This is probably incredibly simple, but how do I modify the formula so it
only highlights if they match in two categories? Thanks.

Zach

 

[Bernard Liengme]

=AND(COUNTIF($B$2:$B$11,B2)>1,COUNTIF($C$2:$C$11,C2)>1)
best wishes

 

[Zach Gold]

The problem with this algorithm is that it returns entries that match others
in both areas regardless of whether the matches are in the same entry. For
example if I have the list:

John Cincinnati
Zach New York
Zach Cincinnati

The last entry will be highlighted although it is not a true duplicate. In
addition, this algorithm is incredibly inefficient for a long list, however
I'm willing to make due as long as I can get this to work. Any more ideas?

Thanks,
Zach

 

[Zach Gold]

One more thing, after I format my entire spreadsheet (nearly 12,000 entries)
it becomes too slow to scroll through. I figured I could solve this by
saving the file and closing excel, but when I try to reopen it excel freezes.
I understand that the formatting is incredibly processor intensive, but once
it is done shouldn't the spreadsheet run just like before?

 

[Zach Gold]

Lastly, once I apply the conditional formatting, I cannot remove the
highlighting on a single entry, which is necessary for when I check the list
for errors. This doesn't really make sense to me, as I assumed it is just
using normal formatting which I should be able to change at will. What is up
with this?