Removing duplicates based on text description

Hi folks

I have a price list of over 8000 products that I need to consolidate into a list of brands only. For instance I have over 300 different product lines from a brewery called Panhead that I only need to appear once.

Is there anyway to remove/eliminate a cell based on the first 8 letters/digits of a description?

Please let me know if I am not making myself clear.

Cheers

thesherriff

Hi, welcome to the forum.

First, put in a helper column. I'm going to assume that your data is in column A, starting in A2 (with a header in A1). Put this in row 2 of your new column and drag it down as far as you need:
=LEFT(A2,8)
This will truncate the product lines to the first 8 characters.

The next step will permanently delete data, so I strongly suggest copying the sheet and trying it on the copy first, just in case.

Select all your data, then click the Data tab and click 'Remove Duplicates'. Click 'my data has headers' if it has. Select the helper column (with the 8-character-long names) - deselect everything else. Click OK.
Now you can remove the helper column.

Hope that helps.

Regards,
Aardigspook

If your problem is solved, please go to 'Thread Tools' above your first post and 'Mark Thread as Solved'.
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Cheers bro. Seemed to have done the trick.

Glad I could help.

Regards,
Aardigspook

If your problem is solved, please go to 'Thread Tools' above your first post and 'Mark Thread as Solved'.
You don't need to give me rep if I helped, but thanks are appreciated.

another way to do this is on the ribbon. i think it may be on the data tab. simply select the data range, click the button "remove duplicates" and select the column a very snazzy trick