Deleting duplicates in Excel 2010

If you have a long list that has duplicate entries, Excel 2010 has a dedicated tool for removing them from a list – something that was much more complicated in previous versions.

Select the entire list in the worksheet. Click on the Data tab in the Ribbon and then on the Remove Duplicates icon in the Data Tools section. It is the second icon from the right in that section and should remain as a large icon even if your Excel window is quite narrow.

Select the ‘My data has headers’ option if there are column headings and click on Select All.

Alternatively you can select individual columns to check for duplicates in them. An example might be removing any duplicates of a surname even if there are several different first names. Click on the OK button to remove the duplicates. A message will appear with the results. Click on OK to return to the spreadsheet.
Chris Jones