The Hermit Hermit's Free Library  Brain Teasers

One in a series of exercises that demonstrate how to accomplish real-world computing tasks using time- and work-saving techniques.

Solution to Brain Teaser #6: Data Clean-Up and Count

Solution


Using MS-Word

  1. Select the data using
    Drag (25 seconds)
    Or
    The Scroll wheel (4 seconds)
    Ctrl-A (0 seconds)
  2. Copy (Ctrl-V), then paste (Ctrl-P) into a blank MS-Word document
  3. Convert the text into a two column table
    Separate with Other (space character)
  4. Delete the second (initial) column
  5. Covert the remaining (first name) column to text
    Separate with Paragraphs
  6. Select all (Ctrl-A)
  7. Sort ascending
  8. Ctrl-F
  9. Search in turn for "Barbara" and "Wanda" and count
  10. Count total names with Review> Wordcount
    Number of names equals number of paragraphs

Using MS-Excel

  1. Select data
  2. Paste into cell A1 of a blank Excel worksheet
  3. Into cell A2 enter the following formula:
    =if(iserror(left(A1,find(".",A1))),A1,left(A1,find(".",A1)-2))
  4. Copy the formula down column 2 to the end of the list
  5. Column 2 displays first names only
  6. Total names equals row number of last name in list
  7. Ctrl-F
  8. Search in turn for "Barbara" and "Wanda" and count