Excel macro to parse a column needed

[abrogard]

I've got a very long column which lists purchases of many different things... often recorded in slightly different ways... 'screwdriver 6inch','driver, screw 6inch', 'screwdriver blade 6inch' and so on....

I need something to go down that column and find the first thing not already dealt with and find every instance and take them (and the cost and date) and copy the info to a column somewhere and then continue on to the next thing.

In the end I should have a number of columns (which will have some screw-ups because of the differences in recording - but the more user control over that the less there'll be) and I should be able to see what all the different items are, when and how many were bought, what the total cost was. Lovely.

I imagine this is what Excel was made for but for the life of me I can't find how you do it automatically - i.e. have excel do it for you. And I'm sure weary of going down the list by hand, over and over.

Can anyone help?

regards,
ab

 

[GlennUK]

It sounds as though a lot of what you want you could get by using a PivotTable on this data. Have a go and see what you think.

Cheers, Glenn.

Did you hear about the literalist show-jumper? He broke his nose jumping against the clock.