Excel easily allows to extract a list of unique items and count them. Handy when you have to extract an order list from a BOM of a PCB for example 😉

When you have a list of items and you want to list and count the unique entries, follow these steps:

• Select ‘Data’ -> ‘Filter’ -> ‘Advanced filter’
• Select ‘Action’ -> ‘Copy to another location’
• Fill in ‘List Range’ to be the column containing the data
• Fill in ‘Copy to’ to be the target colums
• Enable the ‘unique records only’ checkbox
• Click OK

Then, to count the number of unique entries, do as follows:

• Next to the target colum, enter the following formula: =COUNTIF(F:F,I3). This formula counts the number of times the text in cell I3 is encountered in the source list range.
• Expand the formula to the complete target column height.

And you’re done!