Hi Sam,

I am still intrigued as to why you would want to go with a slow
and cumbersome array solution when a simple and faster
helper column solution is available.

You say you have multiple columns, well, Excel has plenty of
columns to spare, there is no crime in using them, you just
hide the helpers.

Regards
Martin


"Sam via OfficeKB.com" <u4102@uwe wrote in message
news:85d12cab2a061@uwe...
Hi Martin,

MartinW wrote:
Hi Sam,

A simple working solution to your problem is to use a helper
column. With your sample data in A2:A40 then
=IF(A2=A1,B1+1,1) placed in B2 and dragged down to B40
and in C1 put =MAX(B2:B40)

That is a very simple workable solution to the problem that many
spreadsheet designers would use yet you don't want helper columns
and drag downs which leads me me to believe that you are trying to
solve a problem in a competition or the like.

I have multiple columns from which I need to extract the same type of
information and trying to avoid additional columns would be very helpful.

If that is the case then do your own dirty work.

My apologies if my assumption is incorrect
Martin

Cheers,
Sam

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