HIGHLIGHTING DUPLICATES BY TEXT SIMILARITY

Introduction to Highlighting Duplicates

To highlight duplicate values from a single column using Flookup, simply go to Extensions > Flookup Data Wrangler > Highlight duplicates in your spreadsheet menu.

Highlighting Duplicates by Percentage or Sound Similarity

1. Select the function to run

   •  Click the menu item labelled "By percentage" or "By sound".

2. Select the highlight mode

   • Select Highlight all duplicates or Skip first occurrence, depending on how you want your results to appear.

3. Select the data range to analyse

   • Select a range with one or more columns. This specifies the number of columns, on the row with duplicates, that you want to highlight. For example, if you select range A2:D500 and duplicates are identified on rows B10, B20 and B50, then A10:D10, A20:D20 and A50:D50 will be highlighted.

4. Index the selected data

   • Click "Map columns in selection" in order to map the columns in your selection.

5. Specify the column of data to analyse

   • Specify the Left_column index. If no user input is made, then the first column of the selected range will be analysed.

6. Specify the level of similarity

   • If you selected "By percentage" in step #1, specify the "Threshold" value. If no user input is made, then only exact matches will be highlighted.

7. Highlight Duplicates

   • Click "Highlight" to execute the function.

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Notes On Highlighting Data Based by a Single Column

• • The number of columns you select determines the number of cells that will be highlighted in each row.

  • The Left_column value is the column index, in your selection, that will be analysed.

  • If you are removing duplicates "By percentage", then duplicates will be values in Left_column that have a level of similarity that that is equal to or higher than the Threshold value.

How to Highlight Duplicates Across Two Different Columns

To highlight duplicates across two different columns, simply follow these steps:

1. Select the function to run

   • Click the menu item labelled "By percentage" or "By sound".

2. Select the highlight mode

   • Select Highlight all duplicates or Skip first occurrence, depending on how you want your results to appear.

3. Select the comparison mode

   • Click the option labelled Compare two different columns.

4. Select the data to compare

   • Select a range with two or more columns.

5. Index the selected data

   • Click "Map columns in selection" in order to index the current columns in your selection.

6. Specify the column indexes to analyse

   • Specify your Left_column and Right_column index. These are the two columns to compare to each other.

7. Set the level of similarity

   • If you selected "By percentage" in step #1, adjust the Threshold value to match your needs. Otherwise, skip this step.

8. Highlight duplicates

   • Click "Highlight" to execute the function.

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Notes On Highlighting Data Based by Two Columns

• • If you are removing duplicates "By percentage", then duplicates will be values in Left_column that exist in Right_column and have a level of similarity that is equal to or higher than the Threshold value.

How to View Duplicate Clusters

Once you have highlighted duplicates and want to view which duplicates are related to each other, follow these steps:

1. In the second drop-down menu, select Trace duplicate clusters.

2. Specify your Trace_row index. This is the row for which you would like to see related duplicates.

3. Scroll to the bottom and click "Trace".

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Notes On Tracing Highlighted Data

• The duplicate clusters for any particular row index will be highlighted in a distinct peach colour. In order to revert to the original highlight colour, simply use the "Undo" button.

For the Visual Learners

Explore Further

• Removing Duplicates by Text Similarity

• Match and Merge Data by Text Similarity