answer:Apologies for the confusion once again. Here is the corrected formula to highlight all the cells in the range A2:Z22 that have the same first three letters within the range A2:Z22: 1. Select the range A2:Z22. 2. Go to the "Home" tab in the Excel ribbon and click on "Conditional Formatting" in the "Styles" group. 3. From the dropdown menu, select "New Rule". 4. In the "New Formatting Rule" dialog box, select "Use a formula to determine which cells to format". 5. In the "Format values where this formula is true" field, enter the following formula: `=COUNTIFS(A2:Z22, LEFT(A2,3)&"*")>1` This formula counts the occurrences of the first three letters of the text in column A within the range A2:Z22 using COUNTIFS function. If the count is greater than 1, it means there are cells with the same first three letters within the range. 6. Click on the "Format" button to define the formatting you want to apply to the cells that meet the condition. Choose a background color or any other formatting option that you prefer. 7. Click "OK" to close the "Format Cells" dialog box. 8. Finally, click "OK" in the "New Formatting Rule" dialog box to apply the conditional formatting to the selected range. Now, all the cells in the range A2:Z22 that have the same first three letters within the range A2:Z22 will be highlighted according to the formatting you specified. Please let me know if you have any further questions!

answer:Apologies for the confusion. The ">1" in the formula means greater than one. That condition is used to determine if there are multiple occurrences of the first three letters within the range A2:Z22. Here's an updated explanation of the formula: 1. Select the range A2:Z22. 2. Go to the "Home" tab in the Excel ribbon and click on "Conditional Formatting" in the "Styles" group. 3. From the dropdown menu, select "New Rule". 4. In the "New Formatting Rule" dialog box, select "Use a formula to determine which cells to format". 5. In the "Format values where this formula is true" field, enter the following formula: `=COUNTIFS(A2:Z22, LEFT(A2,3)&"*")>1` This formula uses the COUNTIFS function to count the number of occurrences of the first three letters of the text in column A within the range A2:Z22. The LEFT(A2,3) extracts the first three letters from the text in column A, and "&"*" is used as a wildcard to consider any additional characters after the three letters. The ">1" at the end of the formula checks if the count is greater than one, meaning there are multiple occurrences of the first three letters within the range A2:Z22. 6. Click on the "Format" button to define the formatting you want to apply to the cells that meet the condition. Choose a background color or any other formatting option that you prefer. 7. Click "OK" to close the "Format Cells" dialog box. 8. Finally, click "OK" in the "New Formatting Rule" dialog box to apply the conditional formatting to the selected range. Now, all the cells in the range A2:Z22 that have the same first three letters and have multiple occurrences within the range A2:Z22 will be highlighted according to the formatting you specified.

answer:Apologies for the confusion. To only highlight the specific cells that meet the condition and ignore blank cells, you can follow these steps: 1. Select the range A2:Z22. 2. Go to the "Home" tab in the Excel ribbon and click on "Conditional Formatting" in the "Styles" group. 3. From the dropdown menu, select "New Rule". 4. In the "New Formatting Rule" dialog box, select "Use a formula to determine which cells to format". 5. In the "Format values where this formula is true" field, enter the following formula: `=AND(ISTEXT(A2), COUNTIF(A:Z, LEFT(A2,3)&"*")>1, NOT(ISBLANK(A2)))` This formula checks if the cell in column A contains text using "ISTEXT" function. It uses "COUNTIF" function to count the number of occurrences of the first three letters of the text in column A within the range A:Z. The "NOT(ISBLANK(A2))" condition is added to ignore blank cells in column A. 6. Click on the "Format" button to define the formatting you want to apply to the cells that meet the condition. Choose a background color or any other formatting option that you prefer. 7. Click "OK" to close the "Format Cells" dialog box. 8. Finally, click "OK" in the "New Formatting Rule" dialog box to apply the conditional formatting to the selected range. Now, only the specific cells in the range A2:Z22 that have the same first three letters and have multiple occurrences within the range A:Z will be highlighted according to the formatting you specified. Blank cells will be ignored.

answer:Apologies for the confusion. If you are looking to highlight cells within the range C2:Y22 where the first three letters are identical, you can use the following formula: 1. Select the range C2:Y22. 2. Go to the "Home" tab in the Excel ribbon and click on "Conditional Formatting" in the "Styles" group. 3. From the dropdown menu, select "New Rule". 4. In the "New Formatting Rule" dialog box, select "Use a formula to determine which cells to format". 5. In the "Format values where this formula is true" field, enter the following formula: `=AND(ISTEXT(C2), COUNTIF(C2:Y2, LEFT(C2,3)&"*")>1, NOT(ISBLANK(C2)))` This formula checks if the cell in column C contains text using "ISTEXT" function. It uses "COUNTIF" function to count the number of occurrences of the first three letters of the text in column C within the same row range C2: