Highlighting similar cells

[TM74]

Hi,

I am trying to design a spreasheet that would help my company identify stock that is under old product codes. Unfortunately our head office loves to change the product codes of our goods at the drop of a hat. For instance:

Product ABC00001 may have a slightly different screw used in its manufacture and so it becomes product ABC00002.

The end result of this is that we end up stock piling equipment, as our sales system is geared up to sell the latest product codes, ignoring the older codes.

Therefore, I have a spreadsheet containing all our products that we currently have in stock, in all our locations, and on another worksheet I have my customers order. I would like to find a way to show all products that I have that start with the same first 7 digits. For example product ABC00002 would look for all products that start with ABC0000 and so on. Information could then be returned via an Index Match formula or something.

I have searched microsoft sites for a solution to what is essentially a simple problem, but with no avail.

Can anyone help?

 

[brian.wethington]

Welcome to the board!


I am quite sure this can be done with normal excel functions but nothing is working the way I would think it would. Therefore, I have put together this simple UDF. Hope this helps!

Option Explicit
Function Sumlen(Ce As Range, CellChoice As String, Length As Integer, CellRangeAdd As Range)
'---------------------------------------------------------
'- Ce is the Range you are checking
'- CellChoice is the string which you wish to compare with
'- Length is the number of characters you wish to compare
'- CellRangeAdd is the Range you will be adding
'---------------------------------------------------------
Dim x As Long, y As Long, i As Long

Application.Volatile
x = Ce.Rows.Count
y = CellRangeAdd.Rows.Count

For i = 1 To x
    If Left(Ce.Cells(i, 1).Value, Length) = Left(CellChoice, Length) Then
        Sumlen = Sumlen + CellRangeAdd.Cells(i, 1).Value
    End If
Next

End Function

 

[TM74]

Thanks, I'll give that a go.