Survey Sorting - Pivot-Tables

[twinturbo2fast]

Hello,

Thank you for your help. I gained a lot of data through a survey which has been transfered to excel.

This data is based on responses not multiple choices. I'm looking to sort data based on certain categories such as Costs. When users are writing down that they came "here" because of low cost, I want it to be considered Costs. Or if they say they came here because of financial aid, I want it to be categorized as Costs.

What I'm asking is, "Is there a way to filter results by having specific names and putting them into a specific category. I have tried to do find and replace but it will take me over a month to finish.

I have been messing around with pivot tables and it seems to work in a broad aspect of what I'm trying to do, but I will still need to do a find and replace.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

[MarvinP]

Hi twinturbo2fast and welcome to the forum,

A little sample of your data would allow us to see what you mean. You can click on "Go Advanced" below the message area and then on the PaperClip above the new message area to upload an attached sample.

[twinturbo2fast]

Here is a sample of some data. Just imagine 2000 responses and 40 questions

[MarvinP]

So you gave this survey and they got to write whatever they wanted as an answer. Is that correct?
Now you realize you should have done a multiple choice answer...

If the above is correct, I'd use this survey to make up the multiple choices for the next survey that you can count the responses.

The problem, if they got to write their own answers is. How do you discriminate "Like School" from "Like Enviroment"? You will need to read every answer and see what they meant and give it a standard word or phrase that you can count.

[twinturbo2fast]

I was afraid of that. I knew it was pretty broad topic but I figured it was worth a shot to ask. No worries.

Thanks for your time.