Discussion on:

A quick trick for hiding duplicate Excel values

Data > Filter > "Unique records only"

but without the repeated information in the 1st column

looks even better if the next condition is that if they're different put a top border on the cell
and if you want to quickly show the hidden data, just select a range including it

Good Excel practice implies to keep the data as simple as possible and to present summaries elsewhere. Formatting cells with blank characters, even using conditional formatting, is bouring and may lead to errors as written in the article.

I usually prefers to convert the data list as an Excel table (Insert menu) and then summarize with a Pivot table. A pivot table will automatically classify by dates providing the date field be used as the first row field for the pivot.

For all Reports, data presentation, summary, analysis, same advice: don't touch the source Data tabsheet, do the job in another tab, use Pivot as much as possible both for summary layout and for calculations. Quicker, simpler and much more robust.

Pivot tables are a great way to display and manipulate data to make it more user friendly. They are quick and easy to make, and can be formatted easily. I prefer to use the "Classic Pivot Table layout" under the display options because the results look like what you are trying to achieve with this method.

Great post! I frequently format my data as tables with alternating colors for the rows. Instead of changing font color I used a custom number format of ";;;" which displays nothing. My color scheme remains unaffected.

I use a combination of Pivot and add a filter field, so excel "data" tab identifies detail data elements to filter out. The filter column is a simple "if" statement like "=if(trim(a1)=trim(a2),"duplicate","ok"). This way I don't have to worry about the cell formating or in A1 or A2 as leading or trailing spaces are removed. The new column is a "filter" at the report level in a pivot table.

As an Excel trainer I get that same question sometimes.
Conditional Formatting is certainly cool. Keep in mind this other technique, it may be handy in certain occasion. It's very quick too!

Using data laid out the same way I created a Pivot Table in the same sheet and quickly dragged the three fields in the Row Labels section. In the Options tab disable Field Headers and in the Design tab I disable the Grand Totals. Finally in the Report Layout choose Show in Tabular Form.

The only thing that is a bit of trouble is that the column headings aren't there so copy and and paste the column headings above the P.T. This would look nice in a PowerPoint Slide.

Thanks for the Conditional Formatting idea now I got two ways.

Daniel

I have used the same basic approach (font colour=background colour) before and find it much simpler that resorting to pivot tables. A suggestion to those who (rightly) point out that the cells look empty: Instead of effectiely blanking the duplciate cells, just choose a lighter font colour (light grey instead of black, for example). This gives the required prominence to rows where the date has changed without hiding the data completely.