Duplicate Values In a column of an excel sheet

[yatindatta]

Hello All,

Requesting help from expert excel users. I am a newbie and learning excel functions and infact this is my first post in the forum.

My query is how do i highlight the first and second duplicate entry in a column. What I am trying to do is making entries in a column. I want that whenever the first and the second duplicate entry occurs, the cell should be highlighted with a colour. Both with different colours. Example the first occurence with green and second occurence with maybe blue.

Thanking you in advance for all the help.

[kersplash]

In the attached I've used a helper column and conditional formatting, assuming that a name will only appear once or twice.

[JieJenn]

One way to do is to use the conditional formatting function in Excel. Highlight the cell range you want to apply conditional formatting, then apply the conditional formatting with formula rule.
You will have to create two conditional formatting rules since you are highlight two difference occurrences with different color.
=COUNTIF($A$2:A2,A2) = 1 <-- will be the first occurrence.
=COUNTIF($A$2:A2,A2) = 2 <-- will be the second occurrence.

On the Excel workbook I attached, there are screenshots of the rules I used.

[kvsrinivasamurthy]

For cell A3 formula for CF

For Green colour
=COUNTIF($A$3:$A3,$A3)=1

For Blue colour
=COUNTIF($A$3:$A3,$A3)=2

Copy CF for other cells including blank cells that may be filled later.

[yatindatta]

Thank You for the quick response