#EXCEL FIND DUPLICATES BUT NOT BLANKS HOW TO#
#EXCEL FIND DUPLICATES BUT NOT BLANKS DOWNLOAD#

The following Dialog box appears, we are going to add Two New Rules On the Home Ribbon got Conditional Formatting, New Rule One of the more useful features of Excel is Conditional Formatting.Д¬onditional Formatting can rely on a cell formula returning True/False to trigger whether it displays the cell using the Conditional Formatting or not. We can see that the Countif() function is now counting how many times the value in B10 occurs in the extended range B3:B10 and if it is greater than 1 it will return TRUEДЇinally resulting in a table of True/False highlighting the Duplicate Status of each entry:ДЄ good aspect of having a Table of TRUE/FALSE is that you can use it with a number of excel functions to trigger them. When we copy the cell C4 down to C10, the formula now becomes: We can see that the Countif() function is now counting how many times the value in B4 occurs in the extended range B3:B4 and if it is greater than 1 it will return TRUE When we copy the cell C3 down to C4, the formula now becomes: The original Formula =COUNTIF($B$3:$B3, B3)>1

The $ signs in the formula =COUNTIF( $B $3: $B3,B3)>1, serve to lock the start position of the range so that when it is copied down the range increases in size as it is copied down The clever part of the formula is the use of the Relative/Absolute Range Modifiers, the $ signs. You can see that Excel does the If and conversion to a Boolean automatically.

The formula then compares the number of times the value occurs with the number 1 using the >1 logic at the end of Debras formula and returns True if the count is greater than 1 and False if it isnвЂ™t Looking at Debras formula it looks like the formula is looking to see how many times the value in Cell B3 occurs in the Range $B$3:$B3, which of course is one as the range only includes B3 So the Countif() function counts the number of occurrences of the Criteria in the Range The Countif() function has the following syntax:

#EXCEL FIND DUPLICATES BUT NOT BLANKS DOWNLOAD#

So today at Formula Forensics we will look at this formula and see what makes it tick as well as looking at a small extensions Debra might be interested in using.ДЄs always at Formula Forensics you can follow along using a Worked Example which you can Download here: Excel 97-2013.Дebras formula =COUNTIF($B$3:$B3, B3)>1 uses the Excel Countif() function to count the occurrence of a value in a range. (I found it years ago on a Microsoft Office website.)вЂќ

#EXCEL FIND DUPLICATES BUT NOT BLANKS HOW TO#

I know how to use it and use it often, but IвЂ™m not really sure how it actually works. вЂњ I have a formula that I think would be a good idea for a future formula forensics post, and also IвЂ™ve always wondered how it works. Last week I received an email from reader, Debra.

Formula Forensics, Huis, Posts by Hui - 20 comments

Excel find duplicates but not blanks