What is how to highlight duplicates in excel?

Here's how to highlight duplicates in Excel using conditional formatting:

Excel provides a straightforward way to automatically highlight duplicate values in a selected range using conditional formatting. This feature allows you to visually identify repeated entries, making data cleaning and analysis much easier.

Steps to Highlight Duplicates:

1. Select the Range: First, select the cells you want to check for duplicates. This could be a single column, multiple columns, or the entire data set.

2. Access Conditional Formatting: Go to the "Home" tab on the Excel ribbon. Click on "Conditional Formatting" in the "Styles" group.

3. Choose Duplicate Values Rule: From the dropdown menu, choose "Highlight Cells Rules" and then select "Duplicate Values...". This will open the "Duplicate Values" dialog box.

4. Customize Highlighting (Optional): In the "Duplicate Values" dialog box, you can choose how you want the duplicate values to be highlighted. The default is "Light Red Fill with Dark Red Text," but you can select other pre-defined formats from the dropdown menu. If you want something more custom, choose "Custom Format..." to access a full range of formatting options, including font, border, and fill colors.

5. Confirm and Apply: Click "OK" to apply the conditional formatting rule. All duplicate values within your selected range will now be highlighted according to the format you chose.

Important Considerations:

• First Occurrence: The conditional formatting will highlight all occurrences of the duplicate value, including the first one.

• Case Sensitivity: By default, Excel's duplicate detection is not case-sensitive. "Apple" and "apple" will be considered duplicates.

• Removing Duplicates: Highlighting is different from removing duplicates. To remove duplicates, use Excel's "Remove Duplicates" feature, typically found under the "Data" tab. See: Removing Duplicates.

• Unique Values: You can also use conditional formatting to highlight unique values instead of duplicates. In step 3, after choosing "Highlight Cells Rules," select "Unique Values...".

• Dynamic Highlighting: The highlighting is dynamic. If you change the value of a cell and it becomes a duplicate (or no longer a duplicate), the highlighting will automatically update.