Forum Discussion
Conditional Formatting Question
I dont feel as though I explained it well enough. Without coffee, "skills" might not have been the best reference point.
Here is a screenshot of the spreadsheet I'm referring to.
As you can see, there are columns illustrating various Rankings of the same individuals. Also, the same individuals are broken down by positions and in some cases, they are categories by analytical date (K/BB%).
So, I wanted to "gray out"/conditional format highlight the names that have already been chosen, so that I know who is still available. I can check availability across the various rankings, positions, or even statistics.
One-by-one just seems to be the long way to do it and thought there would be a shorter method.
Obviously, I'm open to all recommendations as well.
Thank you for the feedback thus far.
What is the formal logic behind to compare the names. For example,
Martinez, J.D.
J.D. Martinez
J.D. Martinez BOS OF
are above 3 different persons or the same one?
The naming conventions are different based on different sources of the Rankings. The individual is the same for all three.
That complicate the things, some assumption shall be made. I guess Alonso, Pete; Peter Alonso and Alonso Pete something is also the same person.
Assumption could be to check only last name (if comma exists when the text before comma, otherwise the text between first and second space or end of the text). Thus you will consider all Alonso as one person. You better know what is the probability to have Alonso Pete and Alonso Alex as two different persons in the ranking lists.
Ellis_CI'm not fully understanding, but you could use the following formula in a CF rule.
=COUNTIF($A$2:$D$4,A2)>1
This one will grey out/Conditional Format a name if and when it is used more than once.
This formula is assuming the range you're checking is A2:D4 and that the first name occurs in A2.
The basic premise is that a group of my friends and I are "drafting" from this group of individuals. So, the spreadsheet starts completely clean.
As a player is taken, I (cross them off the list/gray them out/highlight them) so that I know what group of individuals are left to choose from.
The process of Highlighting is time-consuming, even though it is about five clicks of the mouse (plus typing the name).
Pardon my ignorance, but where do I apply the rule that you referenced.
Do I ...Highlight the whole sheet....highlight cell rules...more rules....use a formula to choose what cells to format.....?
Ellis_COk, this sounds like my first suggestion, but in reverse. So there is a pool of players to pick from and as you choose them, they grey out. So going back to my first reply, you would grey out the names on the right when used in column A (or multiple columns in your scenario).
Yes, the rule would get entered from Home > Conditional Formatting > New Rule > Use a formula to determine which cells to format.
The naming convention you mentioned creates a problem. You can do partial matches in formulas such as VLOOKUP and COUNTIF but can you guarantee there are not more than one J. Martinez? And how would you distinguish which is which.
You need unique reliable names.
