Compare text in columns for duplicates

[dkjonesau]

Hi all,

Been scratching my head & searching for a solution on this. Can't work it out.
I have a table of data representing competitors at an event. Over time the event attracts new entrants, and loses some. I'm trying to compare year on year to see who has come back year on year based on the year prior, and a separate comparison to see who has competed who was there in the first year the event ran. The table looks like the table below. The numbers highlighted in yellow are the results I want.

Club patronage 2017 - 2022.xlsx
	A	B	C	D	E
1	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
2	Dave	Dennis	Jane	Jane	Derek
3	Jess	Dave	Dave	Aaron	Bill
4	Bobby	Bobby	Dennis	Darren	Jess
5	Damien	Jess	Bobby	Adam	Bobby
6	Liz	Liz	Aaron	Liz	Liz
7		Darren	Amy	Xavier	Xavier
8		Adam
9
10
11	Compare	Those that returned from year before
12		2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21
13		4	3	2	2
14
15	Compare	those that returned compared to first year
16		2017-18	2017-19	2017-20	2017-21
17		4	2	1	3
Sheet11

Cells with Conditional Formatting
Cell	Condition		Cell Format	Stop If True
A2:A8,E2:E9	Cell Value	duplicates	text	YES

I did a conditional format for duplicates to find these but I can't do that for the number of sheets I need. I'm looking for a way either VBA or sumproduct type comparison formula that compares the columns and finds the duplicate values.

First row is obviously column compared with column to it's left. Second row compares column with the original entrants in A column.
Any help appreciated.

DJ

 

[JvdV]

To return numbers of the anual comparison:

=SUM(COUNTIF(B2:B8,A2:A8))

For the comparison with year 2017 simply add semi-absolute referencing:

=SUM(COUNTIF(B2:B8,$A2:$A8))

Drag both formulas right.

 

[dkjonesau]

@JvdV - that is awesome. Thanks. Knew there had to be something simple I was missing. I was way overthinking it.
While you're on it, if I wanted to count the number of unique entries in a column who are new competitors (ie never been prior year) what would be the simplest way to count values in say column C that did not appear in A & B?

DJ

 

[JvdV]

@JvdV - that is awesome. Thanks. Knew there had to be something simple I was missing. I was way overthinking it.
While you're on it, if I wanted to count the number of unique entries in a column who are new competitors (ie never been prior year) what would be the simplest way to count values in say column C that did not appear in A & B?

DJ

I believe you could use:

=SUM(--(COUNTIF($A2:A8,B2:B8)=0))

Drag right.