In Excel find a match

For visual highlighting of table cells, having something in common- matching fully or partially the value that is the same font, background, etc. - in Microsoft Office Excel is an option called "Conditional formatting". It allows the user to specify the table editor, what kind of match should be identified in the cells as are strictly necessary to verify the identity, how to distinguish coincidences and other parameters of the operation.

You will need

• The table editor Microsoft Office Excel 2007 or 2010.

Instruction

1. Start Excel and load the desired table. Select the range of cells in which to look for coincidences - it could be single column or row, group of rows/columns, some region on the table, or even several disconnected regions.
2. Open the drop-down list Conditional formatting in the command group Styles on the Home tab in the Excel menu. Go to "Rules for the cell selection" and select "Duplicate values". This will open a dialog box in which you need to fill only two fields.
3. If you want to mark all the cells in a selected region, the contents of which are repeated at least once, leave the left drop-down list the default value is "duplicate". In this list only two options, the second - "unique" - allows you to highlight cells that do not have duplicates.
4. In the right drop-down list, select one of the options for highlighting the found cells. It is placed six options to fill the background, change the font color and part of the found table elements. If none of the options does not fit the design of your table, select the bottom item "Custom format" - and using the window settings design your style of matching cells.
5. Click OK, and Excel will say the matching cell according to preset parameters.
6. The described method allows to select all the cells that have duplicates, but the option conditional formatting can be used in another way. If you need to highlight in the table only duplicates that contain a specific value, then in the section "Rules for the cell selection" drop down list Conditional formatting select is Equal to. After the opening dialogue, click on the cell, all duplicates which you want to identify, and its address appears in the left margin. The remaining steps in this case will not differ from those already described. If necessary, highlight in a different color matching the cells with another value, repeat this step, specifying the address of another cell.