Question

This is quite difficult to explain so I have attached an excel file here: http://minus.com/mQF3Qrsoh

If you look at the excel file column F is what I have currently, column G is what I want.

Basically, the formula will look in the past 5 values for a value of “x” if it finds it, then the next 5 rows are *

I accomplish this by the formula: =IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP("x",E11:E15, 1, FALSE)), "", "*")

However, if there is a second x within 5 cells of another x, then the second x should be ignored completely.

That’s the part I don’t know what to do.

See this screenshot as well, if you dont want to download excel file:

Answer 1

I was able to come up with a solution that uses 1 column and feeds my needs. I had to end up using a separate indicator to signal the start of a group, in this case “x” and then for each following 4, “xx”.

This is for F10:

=IF(AND(COUNTIF(F6:F9,"x")=0,E10="x"),"x",IF(COUNTIF(F6:F9,"x")=0,"","xx"))

Where column E lies the raw data.