Article ID: 213355 - Last Review: November 23, 2006 - Revision: 3.6

How to find duplicate entries in a column by using a macro in Excel 2000

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This article was previously published under Q213355

For a Microsoft Excel 97 version of this article, see 142591 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/142591/ ) .

SUMMARY

The Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications sample macro in this article finds duplicate cell entries within a column, and changes the color of the cell containing the duplicate entry to red.

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For the macro to work correctly, make sure both of the following conditions have been met:

The column in which you want to find duplicates has been sorted based on values in that column.

-and-
The first cell in the column in which you want to find duplicates is selected.

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Sample Visual Basic Code

Sub FindDups ()
   '
   ' NOTE: You must select the first cell in the column and
   ' make sure that the column is sorted before running this macro
   '
   ScreenUpdating = False
   FirstItem = ActiveCell.Value
   SecondItem = ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Value
   Offsetcount = 1
   Do While ActiveCell <> ""
      If FirstItem = SecondItem Then
        ActiveCell.Offset(Offsetcount,0).Interior.Color = RGB(255,0,0)
        Offsetcount = Offsetcount + 1
        SecondItem = ActiveCell.Offset(Offsetcount, 0).Value
      Else
        ActiveCell.Offset(Offsetcount, 0).Select
        FirstItem = ActiveCell.Value
        SecondItem = ActiveCell.Offset(1,0).Value
        Offsetcount = 1
      End If
   Loop
   ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

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