Well not quite excel but same principle I think. Got a google shared drive document and one column should always have an unique number in it. Recently one was duplicated and caused a shit load of chew. (No penguins involved)

Is there a way i can make any duplications become a highlighted cell etc in this one row?

Text is in this format: 12345678-01, 12345678-02 etc

You can on Excel using Conditional Formatting - pretty easily, but not sure on google shared drive?

If it's the same as excel, highlight the list, click conditional formatting, new rule, then duplicate values, and set a colour.

seems to be no "duplicate values" on google shared drive

Why are you using Google document? Use excel then just upload the document.

Google says


Select the whole column, then from the menu: Format/Conditional formatting.
From the "Text Contains" (or "Format cells if...") dropdown menu select "Custom formula is:", and write: =countif(A:A,A1)>1
Add some formatting rule.
For the range, write: A1:A100

Done. Anything you write in the A1:A100 cells will be checked, and if there is a duplicate (occurs more than once) then it'll be coloured.

Have you tried the off and on switch?

If it helps good, if it doesn`t, shappens!

Cheers John!

Had to change formatting to "text" instead of number and worked a treat

Its a file regularly used by many people all at the same time so find it easier using google docs.