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I have an issue in Excel and would like to create some custom formatting for a set of text fields. When I insert names into a spreadsheet, my source data often comes in with middle initials, surnames, titles, etc. Here are a few good examples:

  • Michael Smith , CPA

  • Hank Phillips , Sr.

  • Joseph Lincoln III
  • Daniel Lammers , MD, FACS, FAAO

I'd like to filter these things out using formatting or validation rules. It would be ideal to ensure that all names in the column are of a certain format "LastName, FirstName".

Does anyone have experience in this or have any solutions to my problem?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Best,

Ed

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  • You need to think about what you will do when the first name, last name, or both consist of more than one word. For example "Mary Jane Van Epps Junior" probably has "Mary Jane" as her first name, "Van Epps" as her last name and "Junior" as a suffix. How will you detect that and what do you want to do about it?
    – Blackwood
    Commented Aug 29, 2017 at 17:38
  • @Blackwood , Thanks for your comment. You are absolutely right; There are bound to be conflicts with a rule like this. The questions you raised will probably need to be solved at the data source level. I really wanted to have some sort of validation rule that formats cells as (XXXX) (XXXXXX) and doesn't allow for periods, numbers, or commas.
    – Ed L.
    Commented Aug 29, 2017 at 19:46

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