Collating data

[nialljcr]

Hi,

Fairly straight forward problem but can't quite get the right formula.

I have a column of data that includes various names, can anyone suggest a way that I can set up a spreadsheet so when the data is input it automatically collates the number of occurences of each name?

For example I enter the below in a column:
John
Neil
Tim
John
Jim
Tim
Tim

And Excel automatically sorts the data into a table like the below:
John 2
Neil 1
Tim 3
Jim 1

A problem with doing this is that the names I am inputting change all the time so I can't create a table that counts the number of occurences of a set list of names.

Thanks in advance for any help in this matter!
Niall

[mugezhn]

How about making pivot table by choosing the inputted names as rows and count of the names as a column???? After you input a name you would just have to refresh the pivot table. (You just have to be sure that the ranges of the pivot table are large enough to cover all the possible rows)