Conditional Formatting Partial Match

[n3sky]

I apologize in advance if this is already posted somewhere - I searched the forum for about 30 minutes and wasn't able to find the answer.

I'm trying to find a formula that will ignore text when searching for duplicates contained within the same column. For example, the column contains the following:

WS-X4606-X2-E
WS-X4606-X2-E=
WS-X4606-X2-E=
WS-C4960=
WS-C4960

The = should be ignored and these should all be highlighted as duplicates.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[bentleybob]

If the "=" is the only thing you need to ignore, you could use SUBSTITUTE to replace it with a null.

[n3sky]

Thanks for the reply. I would do a SUBSTITUTE or simply find/replace the = with null, but I need to keep the = character. Is there any way to do it without removing the = character?

[bentleybob]

Can you add a helper column? Not elegant, I agree, but generally easy to do and very workable.

[n3sky]

I could add a helper column, but I'd really prefer to find a formula that does it. It must be possible..