Excel/Unique Identifier

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Question
Tom
I have a column of text entries that I want to allocate an identifier number to in the next adjacent cell, as a lot of the text entries can appear more than once in the column range, and would then have the same identifying number in the next cell is there a formula that I could just copy down to enter the numbers for me
Hope you can help

Regards
John

Answer
John,
Assume the identifier is to go in column B starting in B2 and the text entries start in A2

=IF(COUNTIF($A$2:A2,A2)=1,MAX($B$1:B1,0)+1,INDEX($B$1:B1,MATCH(A2,$A$1:A1,0),1))

So I put the above in B2, then drag filled it down the column.  It worked fine for me.

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Regards,
Tom Ogilvy  
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Tom Ogilvy

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Selected as an Excel MVP by Microsoft since 1999. Answering Excel questions in Allexperts since its inception in 2001. Able to answer questions on almost all aspects of Excel's internal capabilities. If seeking a VBA solution, please specify that in your question itself so I give you the answer you want. [Excel has weak protection - if you are distributing an application, I don't answer questions on how to protect your project from your users.]

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Extensive experience.

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Master of Science (MS) degree Operations Research (ORSA)

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Microsoft MVP in Excel.

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