Forum Discussion
Working with cells that contain multiple values delimited by commas
I have a column where each cell has up to 5 values (from a multiple choice survey), where possible values are one or more of: A, B, C, D, or E, and any multiple values in one cell are delimited by commas.
1) How do I filter out only the rows where the cell value contains a particular value such as "A"? (same for B, C, D, E)
2) How do I count how many "A" values there are in a column?
Thank you!!
Colleen
1) After turning on Filter, click the filter dropdown arrow in the top cel of the column.
Select Text Filters > Contains...
Enter A (or B, C, ...) in the box.
Click OK.
2) Use a formula such as
=COUNTIF($A$2:$A$50, "*A*")
The wildcard characters * tell Excel to count cells that contain A with possibly other text.
12 Replies
- Working with cells that contain multiple values delimited by commas is common, and it often involves tasks like splitting, combining, or analyzing the values. Here are some common scenarios and techniques for dealing with such cells, assuming you are using a spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets:
Splitting Values:
Excel:
You can use the "Text to Columns" feature. Select the column, go to the "Data" tab, and choose "Text to Columns." Select the delimited option, choose comma as the delimiter, and follow the wizard.
Alternatively, you can use formulas like LEFT, RIGHT, MID, or combination of these to extract individual values.
Google Sheets:
You can use the SPLIT function. For example, if A1 contains your comma-separated values, you can use =SPLIT(A1, ",") in another cell to split the values.
Combining Values:
Excel:
You can use the CONCATENATE function to combine values. For example, =CONCATENATE(A1, ", ", B1, ", ", C1).
In newer versions of Excel, you can also use the TEXTJOIN function. - I have used vb to to populate a column with more than one value but need each one to have a comma afterwards so the filter shows them. How do I do this please?
- Code is below:
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
Dim Oldvalue As String
Dim Newvalue As String
Application.EnableEvents = True
On Error GoTo Exitsub
If Target.Address = "$I$" & Target.Row Then
If Target.SpecialCells(xlCellTypeAllValidation) Is Nothing Then
GoTo Exitsub
Else: If Target.Value = "" Then GoTo Exitsub Else
Application.EnableEvents = False
Newvalue = Target.Value
Application.Undo
Oldvalue = Target.Value
If Oldvalue = "" Then
Target.Value = Newvalue
Else
If InStr(1, Oldvalue, Newvalue) = 0 Then
Target.Value = Oldvalue & vbNewLine & Newvalue
Else:
Target.Value = Oldvalue
End If
End If
End If
End If
Application.EnableEvents = True
Exitsub:
Application.EnableEvents = True
End Sub
The result populates the cells with multiple selections however, when using filter on the column, it wont pick up cells with more than one selection
1) After turning on Filter, click the filter dropdown arrow in the top cel of the column.
Select Text Filters > Contains...
Enter A (or B, C, ...) in the box.
Click OK.
2) Use a formula such as
=COUNTIF($A$2:$A$50, "*A*")
The wildcard characters * tell Excel to count cells that contain A with possibly other text.
How do you take a column of data, each cell having one or more text values (A,B,C,D,E), and then show the distribution of responses on a bar graph?
Sample column data and sample bar graph are attached. (The bar graph was created by google forms, but I want to know how to create my own from my data in an Excel file.)
See the attached version.
