Sometimes an axis contains two or more elements with the same text. This often happens when the axis contains subgroups (the Quantum group keyword) or subheadings (n23s). When this happens, the multiproject program checks whether the element is in exactly one subgroup and, if not, inserts the subgroup name at the start of the element text in an attempt to make the element text unique. Elements present in only one subgroup are left untouched. A similar thing happens with subheadings, except that if the element is preceded by more than one subheading, only the most recent is taken. An element text may be preceded by both a group name and a subheading text. For example, if the axis is specified as:

The multiproject program produces the following texts for comparison:

It is now clear that the pairs of brand A, C and D elements are each different.

Having made this conversion, the multiproject program then links the databases and merges elements if they have identical texts. If axes in databases other than the master database still have duplicate element texts, the program issues a warning to this effect. However, if axes in the master database have duplicate elements, but there are no duplicates in the constituent axes being matched, no warning is issued.