Deleting Duplicates

[Guest]

Hi,

I've been trying for several hours to delete duplicates from an Excel file
that has been exported from a database application. I have read many, many
posts, and none seem to work for me. I've tried conditional formatting to
highlight duplicates, Advanced Filtering (many times), and it just doesn't
seem to work. I am trying to remove duplicates based on e-mail addresses,
from a table of 4500 records. Can someone please tell me step-by-step what
to do: where to click, the terms that Excel uses etc?

Thanks,

Jane

 

[Guest]

Thanks Pranav, but this doesn't work. It just copies all the records again.
Don't I need to specify in the "Criteria Range" a column or a cell that
defines what is a unique value? In my example, doesn't there need to be
something that tells Excel to look at the column that has the e-mail
addresses in it, and where there is a row that has a duplicate, remove the
duplicate(s)?

Or I am just completely misinterpreting the function?

Thanks,

Jane

 

[Guest]

I think Advanced filter should work for you.
Follow these steps-

1. Select the entire range, say A1:A4500, including column heading
2. Go to Data-->Filter-->Advanced filter
3. Select copy to another location
4. Tick the check box 'Unique Records only'
5. Specify the location where you want the unique records to be listed.

Remember step 4 and 5 are most important.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Chip Pearson has lots of techniques to work with duplicates:
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/duplicat.htm

And be sure to check your data. If you have extra spaces (leading/trailing/or
embedded), the values won't be duplicates.