I have 18 members in all, each member can hold 2 items, item list contains 25
different items, I want to place something similar to conditional formatting
so that it will highlight if 2 members or more have the same item in their
inventory, conditional formatting allows for only 3 conditions, while having
25 different items means alot of combinations are possible. I want the
program/code or formula to not highlight if a member holds only a unique
selection from the 25 that is not selected by other members. that again is
not possible with conditional formatting.

It sounds like you only have one format (highlight) to apply conditionally,
so you should be okay. For the condition, use a formula rather than a value,
with the formula something like =countif(range,this_cell)1

"Abdul" wrote:

I have 18 members in all, each member can hold 2 items, item list contains 25
different items, I want to place something similar to conditional formatting
so that it will highlight if 2 members or more have the same item in their
inventory, conditional formatting allows for only 3 conditions, while having
25 different items means alot of combinations are possible. I want the
program/code or formula to not highlight if a member holds only a unique
selection from the 25 that is not selected by other members. that again is
not possible with conditional formatting.

"bpeltzer" wrote:

It sounds like you only have one format (highlight) to apply conditionally,
so you should be okay. For the condition, use a formula rather than a value,
with the formula something like =countif(range,this_cell)1

no Bpeltzer, think of it as if you want to let the members see their item of
interest is not being shared by others, so if let say member1 had item1 and
member16 had the same item he'd have to cross watch through all members to
notice its being shared with him, and if all highlighters are of same color
its same as no highlighter is being used..

also the item names are in text values not numbers or end with numbers.