OH fab. Glad I could help

Thanks Norma!

It appears to have hidden duplicates but I've copied and pasted into new spreadsheet and taken total down by about a thousand and now I don't have to make decisions about keeping Mr or Mrs as it has done it for me

Result!

Cut and paste from help - don't know if it helps though

Select the column or click a cell in the range or list you want to filter.
On the Data menu, point to Filter, and then click Advanced Filter.
Do one of the following.
To filter the range or list in place, similar to using AutoFilter, click Filter the list, in-place.
To copy the results of the filter to another location, click Copy to another location. Then, in the Copy To box, enter a cell reference.
To select a cell, click Collapse Dialog to temporarily hide the dialog box. Select the cell on the worksheet, and then press Expand Dialog .

Select the Unique records only check box.
Note Once you filter for unique values, you can copy them to another worksheet and then archive or delete the original worksheet.

Hi

I've downloaded our client database into an exel spreadsheet as I want to mail everyone who has worked with us.

However, our database is crap (in house system) and many people have input various things over the years so I'm doing some serious data cleaning!

Have managed to take out everyone who is a supplier or business contact rather than customer (hilariously, there is no way of disinguishing between these groups in our data, I've cleaned via postcode...)

I'm now left with some 7,000 names and addresses. I only want one letter to go to each household and for the first 500 I have sorted by postcode then address and skimmed down to try and take out duplicate addresses and names (many people have 2-3 records but I can't face doing this for the whole lot!!

Is there a way I can highlight duplicates in the address1 column (number and street) that would allow me to easily get rid of the obvious reoffenders?

Cheers