Excel 2007 : How to shuffle list of words in a column?

**emil9216** · 10-16-2011, 10:15 AM

How can i shuffle randomly a list of words in an excel column?

Thanks!

**Andrew-R** · 10-16-2011, 10:47 AM

Use a macro, or maybe a formula.

Can you tell us a little bit more about what you're trying to do? Are the words set out one word per cell, or are there multiple words per cell? Do you just want them mixed up? Must all of the words be used? Can there be duplicates?

An example workbook would probably help a lot.

**emil9216** · 10-16-2011, 11:04 AM

For example, this names that are in column A in the file i want to shuffle / reorder them randomly.

**Andrew-R** · 10-16-2011, 11:18 AM

How about something like the attached? Press F9 to re-shuffle the list.

**emil9216** · 10-16-2011, 11:33 AM

Thanks, it's working.
What formula have you use for that?

**Andrew-R** · 10-16-2011, 11:39 AM

I've insert a column to the left of the names which has random number in, generated using the RAND() function.

The new column to the right of the names firstly checks that all of the random numbers are different (this is slightly overkill, the chance of generating the same random number twice in a sample of 100 is vanishingly small), if the numbers are unique then it returns the name next to the nth largest number, where n is specified by the row number (so row 1 contains the name next to the 1st largest random number, row 2 the name next to the 2nd largest number and so on).

There are neater ways of doing it, but this is probably the most straightforward.