This assumes each column is sorted - which your description seems to imply.

Select the second row of data through the last row of data
Make a note of the active cell - say it's A3
Use FormatConditional Formatting
Select "cell value is" "not equal to" and enter =A2 (or what ever cell is
immediately above your active cell)
Click on the format button and go to the pattern tab. Select an appropriate
color and OK your way back to the spreadsheet.

You should see highlights in each column where the value changes


"Eric" wrote:

Hi Everyone,

I have a task that I have been doing by hand that is tedious and
inaccurate, and I am hoping a clever reader will be able to help me. I
have several columns of data in an Excel table that I would like to
quickly analyze and determine were the differences are. For example, I
might have 20 rows, and in column 1 I might have 19 'A' and 1 'V'; in
the next column I might have 6 'D', 8 'E', 5 'N', and 1 'Q', etc. What
I do by hand is highlight each change with a different color so that I
can track how and where they change.

Is there a macro that could do this? It is very tedious and time
consuming (not to mention in accurate) for me to do this by hand,
particularly when dealing with several hunderd columns and a 100 or so
rows.

Thank you in advance.

PS I have never written a macro, I just know that they are amazing!

Warm regards,

Eric