Closest Duplicate remove

[ClementA]

Hi,

I have a column with huge list of company names. I have removed the exact duplicate companies presented in the column.

However, there are plenty of repeated companies name in the column with partial and real spelling of the company name.

Eg:
ABC inc
ABC
XYZ Data Inc
XYZ Inc
XYZ
Northeast corp.
North corp.
Northeast

(hope you understood the duplicate types in the column)

Only first a few letters of company name is similar between the cells randomly.

I am finding very difficult to delete the duplicate row manually by sorting option. I humbly request you to help me identifying the cells contains of first "any range" of same letters presented.
OR help me highlight the partially matched cell in the entire column.

Please help me with the solutions.
Awaiting for help!

Thank you so much.

 

[oldbrewer]

IF YOU HAVE Northeast corp AND Northwest corp where these are 2 different companies no partial match system will work. I once worked with a spreadsheet that had King's Cross, Kings Cross, K Cross, KX, Kings X and many more - I sorted alphabetically and and replaced all of the above variants with Kings Cross as each row was details of an accident at that location..............

 

[ClementA]

Yes, I am also doing the same way, I'm sorting the list alphabetically and deleting the duplicate row. I got nearly 15000 names to be checked. If I have any option like highlighting or true/false if first four letters in the cells are similar. Then I will do filter and will be able to remove them easily.

 

[Fluff]

You could do something like

Excel 2013/2016
	A	B
2	YO95 1BT	FALSE
3	YO91 1XY	TRUE
4	YO91 1RT	FALSE
5	YO90 1YD	FALSE
6	YO8 9ZZ	TRUE
7	YO6 9ZT	FALSE
8	YO8 9ZS	TRUE
9	YO8 9XA	TRUE
10	YO8 9TY	TRUE
11	YO8 8YY	TRUE
12	YO8 7ZZ	TRUE
13	YO8 7ZY	TRUE
14	YO10 6XP	FALSE
15	YO8 7PY	TRUE
16	YO8 7EN	TRUE
Sheet1

Cell Formulas
Range	Formula
B2	=COUNTIF(A2:A30,LEFT(A2,4)&"*")>1

and then filter on TRUE