Forum Discussion
Conditional formatting in Excel
Brewster56 Most likely, the texts you copied from the web contains "white space" that isn't empty. These can be trailing spaces or other hidden characters.
For a computer "Name" is not equal to "Name " (i.e. "Name" plus three spaces) even though they may look the same in your Excel document. Locate two cell in the data you copied from the web that look the same to you. Let's say A2 and A10 seem to be duplicates. Type the following formula somewhere:
=A2=A10If the result is FALSE, they ar NOT duplicates and conditional formatting will not highlight them.
You can try functions like TRIM, CLEAN or SUBSTITUTE to clean-up the data. If this does not resolve the issue, perhaps you can upload a copy of the workbook (as long as it doesn't contain any private and confidential information).
Wow!! No wonder you are a Respected Contributor - it is exactly the issue you pointed out!!
I had absolutely no idea as all the text etc., looks alike. I ran the formula you suggested and some came up "TRUE" and others came up "FALSE".
I certainly learned something valuable from you today - which is good in and of itself. I am unfamiliar with the functions you suggested - but I will give them a go!!
My respect to you as well - and many thanks!!!
Brewster56 Good luck! Come back here if you need more help.
PS: Just after posting my response here, I replied to another question dealing with white-space. I added a workbook with a simple "tool" that helps identifying all the characters in your text. It uses one of the latest dynamic array functions (SEQUENCE).
You are awesome!! Really...really appreciate all of this. I'll check it all out. I even appreciate the learning I'm experiencing....
Kindest regards!!!
Brewster56 Get back here if you run into any trouble!