function that will aggregate selected data?

This forum has helped me a lot in the past. I tried searching and could not find an answer on this, and I fully admit that it could be because I'm using the wrong search terms. I will describe what I want to do as best I can.

I want to have a list of characteristics which would lie in rows. For example:

Has 4 legs.
Has 2 eyes.
Has fur.
Has a tail.
Has fins.

Then I want to be able to select just the rows that apply to my "subject." Like this:

x Has 4 legs.
Has 2 eyes.
x Has fur.
x Has a tail.
Has fins.

In my mind, I would organize the characteristics in column B so that column A would be available to put an "x" next to the characteristics that apply to my subject.


Finally--and this is where the formula comes in--I need a formula that will check the rows where I have placed an "x" and aggregate the corresponding characteristics into A SINGLE STRING. I feel that is the difference for what I'm trying to do and VLOOKUP. So, the formula would produce this string from my example:

Has 4 legs. Has fur. Has a tail.

Any ideas?

Can you build a sample book that contains this said data and then the final result (Where you would want it) then someone here can take a look from there

Please take a moment to read the forum rules and then amend your thread title to something descriptive of your problem (think google search terms?). Once you have done this please send me a PM and I will remove this request. (Also, include a link to your thread - copy from the address bar)

Many members search our previous posts, and thread titles play a big part of the search. I doubt anybody would do a search based on your title?

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example.xlsx

I would probably go with something like what is attached. Using Check boxes out of your developer ribbon since you plan on making this a check list. We could do other things as well such as add a leading "Helper" column that assigns a variable that we could then utilize to do a strung together Vlookup - you do have options but it comes down to how big is this data set (As it looks now this is going to power an RPG) which means there are a ton of lists... so scalability will be limited to your ability to recreate possible solutions.

Row\Col	A	B	C
1		Has 4 legs. Has fur. Has a tail.	B1: {=CatIf(A2:A6<>"", B2:B6, " ")}
2	x	Has 4 legs.
3		Has 2 eyes.
4	x	Has fur.
5	x	Has a tail.
6		Has fins.

Function CatIf(avbIf As Variant, _
               rInp As Range, _
               Optional sSep As String = ",", _
               Optional bCatEmpty As Boolean = False) As String
  ' shg 2007
  ' UDF only

  ' Catenates the elements of rInp separated by sSep where the corresponding
  ' element of avbIf is True. Empty cells ignored unless bCatEmpty is True.

  Dim iRow          As Long
  Dim iCol          As Long
  Dim i             As Long

  On Error Resume Next
  i = UBound(avbIf, 2)

  If Err.Number Then
    ' avbIf is 1D
    For iRow = 1 To rInp.Rows.Count
      For iCol = 1 To rInp.Columns.Count
        i = i + 1
        If avbIf(i) Then
          If bCatEmpty Or Not IsEmpty(rInp(iRow, iCol).Value2) Then
            CatIf = CatIf & rInp(iRow, iCol).Value2 & sSep
          End If
        End If
      Next iCol
    Next iRow
  Else
    ' it's 2D
    For iRow = 1 To rInp.Rows.Count
      For iCol = 1 To rInp.Columns.Count
        If avbIf(iRow, iCol) Then
          If bCatEmpty Or Not IsEmpty(rInp(iRow, iCol).Value2) Then
            CatIf = CatIf & rInp(iRow, iCol).Value2 & sSep
          End If
        End If
      Next iCol
    Next iRow
  End If

  If Len(CatIf) Then CatIf = Left(CatIf, Len(CatIf) - Len(sSep))
End Function

Two notes:

1. Unmerge A1:B1 before entering the formula.

2. The formula MUST be confirmed with Ctrl+Shift+Enter instead of just Enter.

Copy the code from the post. In Excel, do Alt+F11 to open the VBE, Insert > Module, paste the code in the window that opens, then do Alt+Q to return to Excel