# Excel q: Display most frequently occuring text string in a column

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-q-display-most-frequently-occuring-text-string-in-a-column/471599>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 7, 2008, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-q-display-most-frequently-occuring-text-string-in-a-column/471599 "2008-11-07T05:58:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![atomicbadgerrace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@atomicbadgerrace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/atomicbadgerrace)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-q-display-most-frequently-occuring-text-string-in-a-column/471599/1 "2008-11-07T05:58:51Z")

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Hey guys

So, I have a spreadsheet and in column J I have a group of 3 character codes. Looks like:

JVD  
VKR  
JVD  
VOR  
PPL  
OKR  
JVD  
…

I want to put a formula in another cell that displays the most frequently occuring string in column J. I don’t know if Excel (2007) has a built-in way to do this, but if someone could walk me through the process, I’d appreciate it!

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**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-q-display-most-frequently-occuring-text-string-in-a-column/471599/2 "2008-11-07T06:21:19Z")

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I’m no Excel expert, but i found [this](http://excelusergroup.org/forums/t/201.aspx). The second response has a sample spreadsheet you can work from.

Is this what you were looking for?