pairing cells vertically based on closest value on two rows

[AndyLaic]

Hi all,
I need to makes pairs of cells base on closest value in column B. Column A has increasing numbers 1 to 60 and they need to stay with the cells in column B after the pairing. To explain:
I have 60 cells in B column, each with a number form 7.01 to 9.5 and I need to obtain 30 pairs of cells by matching the closest values in B column - (for example if I have these numbers 7.85, 7.86, 7.95, 7.95, 8.15 and 8.20, then 7.85 should be paired with 7.86, 7.95 with 7.95 and 8.15 with 8.20)

Ideally the cells would be separated into pairs with spaces between pairs, rather than color paired because with 30 pairs the colors will be exhausted. I attach two files - 1st an example of how paring with color would be and the 2nd with spaces between pairs instead of color paring. Notice than in the example when the cell-pairs have spaces between pairs the numbers in column A are sorted to remain next to the numbers in column B as originally.

Is this possible to achieve?
thank you.
Andy

 

[GraH - Guido]

Hmm, perhaps this works:

EDIT: I shifted down your values

in [D2] =IFERROR(SMALL($B$2:INDEX($B$2:$B$11,MATCH(999^99,$B$2:$B$11)),ROWS($A$2:A2)*MOD(ROWS($A$2:A2),2))&" - "&SMALL($B$2:INDEX($B$2:$B$11,MATCH(999^99,$B$2:$B$11)),ROWS($A$2:A2)+1),"")

 

[Peter Bartholomew]

My approach is to string the values together in ascending order and then pull them apart in pairs. The tricky part was to generate the number sequence
{1;2; ;3;4; ;5;6; ;...}. The formula I used for that was
= IF( MOD( ℓ, 3), ℓ - QUOTIENT( ℓ, 3), 0 )
where ℓ is the line number. With that done, the formula is no more than
= IF( k, SMALL( list, k ), "" )
As usual, the intended solution is built from array formulas by default.

 

[John Jairo V]

Hi, to all!

Another option could be:
=IF(ROWS(D$3:D3)>COUNT(tList)*1.5,"",IF(MOD(ROWS(D$3:D3),3),SMALL(tList,1+COUNT(D$2:D2)),""))

being tList the "entry list". Check file. Blessings!