Giving duplicates in Excel a unique identifier - excel

Question

I have a large excel spreadsheet containing multiple address lines. Many of these adress lines contain duplicate postcodes, with differing steet adrresses.
I need to seperate out each of these duplicates onto different spreadhseets, so that no one spreadhseet contains the same postcode. I'm currently using an =if() statement to identify the duplicates, then cutting and poasting, and repeating almost ad infinitum to speperate them all out
as an example:
address 1 postcode 1
address 2 postcode 1
address 3 postcode 1
address 4 postcode 2
address 5 postcode 2
address 6 postcode 3
address 7 postcode 3
address 8 postcode 3
address 9 postcode 3
would give 4 spreadsheets:
1)
address 1 postcode 1
address 4 postcode 2
address 6 postcode 3
2)
address 2 postcode 1
address 5 postcode 2
address 7 postcode 3
etc
Any hints on a vb script?
Many thanks
Nick

Answer 1

If this is a one-off thing, then I'd consider doing it in the worksheet and bulk cut-pasting. I'd try something like this:
Sort my data on the post code column
In a new column, add a function to count the number of post codes below the current row that are duplicates of the code on that row (see below)
Save (copy/paste-special-values) the values obtained
Sort by duplicate number
Cut and paste blocks by duplicate number to new sheets
Say I have 20 values between 1 and 5 in column G. I put the following formula in H1:
=SUM(IF(G1:$G$20=G1,1,0))
... and (important bit) enter it as an array formula using Control+Shift+Enter. Now I copy that formula down (for speed, double-click the "fill handle" on the bottom right-hand corner of the cell). Here's my result:
1 2
1 1
2 2
2 1
3 8
3 7
3 6
3 5
3 4
3 3
3 2
3 1
4 2
4 1
5 6
5 5
5 4
5 3
5 2
5 1
Now I can copy column H and Edit...Paste Special...Values to fix the values. Sort by H to get this:
1 1
2 1
3 1
4 1
5 1
1 2
2 2
3 2
4 2
5 2
3 3
5 3
3 4
5 4
3 5
5 5
3 6
5 6
3 7
3 8
Now I have sets of records to copy to each of the 8 sheets that I now know are needed.
Of course, if you're going to be doing this a lot, then a macro would be useful. It needn't be much more complex than automating the above.