Excel is a spreadsheet system that allows for multiple items to be placed on one spreadsheet that then allows for easy analysis and reporting in a variety of formats. When creating the spreadsheet it is important to think about your column and row set up so that all of the information that you need to collate can then be sorted and reported on later.
One issue that can occur, that is not directly related to the system but to the information that you hold, is that of duplicate entries. It is common to have the same items entered more than once whether this is a duplication due to the same person signing up twice for a service you offer or a duplication present in a document when you use a PDF to Excel converter.
These duplications can be easily dealt with by following the steps below.
- Highlight the cells you wish to check
- Click conditional formatting on the home screen
- Select highlight cell rules
- Click duplicate values
- Select the formating you want – such as highlight the duplicate cells red
- Check the cells and then remove the duplicates as required.
It is important that you always double check the duplicate cells so that you do not accidentally remove any information that you will need later on.