Selecting specific numbers in a column among a long list of numbers

Hello to everyone,

I am new on the forum and have been troubling myself trying to select specific numbers among a list of numbers in a column.
i have been trying to filter the column by clicking on data, filter, auto filter, and custom, then :show lines that contains...: and thats where i have a problem, i put the numbers i want among the list (that goes from 1 to 15000) and i only want 50 numbers and it doesnt work
i tried to select them by typing: that contains: 2,3,5,9,15,150, it didnt work i tried with the ";" sign or the parenthesis.

If somebody could solve this problem i'd be grateful. By the way i am using excel 2003.

Thanks everyone in advance!

Hi there,

I am a fairly basic user so you might get a better answer from more experienced excel pros, but here is my contribution.

separators in filers do not work as it will look at each character, in other words excel views the ',' as a character not a separator.

What I would suggest is a separate column dedicated to filtering, then simply enter yes or no in it. Seeing as you have 15,000 rows I would suggest typing no into the forst row of the filter column and doing a fill command via the mouse (move mouse into bottom right of cell until a solid black cross then double click), this will copy that data where there is consistent data (eg column 2 with no spaces will result in copied from 1 to 15,000 however if there is a gap it will only copy upto the gap.

Then after you have copied that, jump to each of the 50 cells you want extracted and change them to a yes. Once you have done this select your filter dropdown, untick the no and there you have it (as per the attached).

That would work too but the only reason I didn't offer the multiple checking is because it can take a long time to cycle through the filter list (many a frustrated day with that), but that might work better roueff!, but I do like the formula option!

Hi guys,

Such quick answers, thanks for the welcoming you two!
TIGERAVATAR i cannot see the forumula you sent me when i click on it
ilamafarmer, i understand your point, its just weird to have to use letters like yes or no because excel cannot get a serie of numbers i impose it to select... thanks for illustrating the example

There are more complicated ways of doing it which are more dynamic, for instance you could create a separate sheet for data collection and use a vlookup formula on each column to find and return each value.

See updated attached