It should be

=COUNTIF (L:L,L2)1

no quotes

--
HTH

Bob Phillips

(remove nothere from email address if mailing direct)

"Personal Assistant" <Personal wrote in
message ...
I have followed directions from MS online help to use conditional
formatting
to find duplicates. However, when I "paste special" the formatting into
all
of the cells, the CF stays the same and does not change from cell to cell.
For example, I used the following formula:
="COUNTIF (L:L,L2)1" but when I pasted this CF to all other cells, L2
remains absolute.
Is there help for me?