Looking up a variable in one worksheet and copying information from another column to another worksh

[Brad Torken]

HELP!!

My poor wife has two excel files and thinks she has about 24 hours of work
on her hands so I'm hoping someone here can help. What she has to do is
use the item number from a column in file A, and looking for the same item
number in file B. Then she needs to take a number from the same row but
another column and move it to a new column in file A. Any idea on how I
can do that? She has 200 pages worth to go through and I would hate for
her to have to look up each one individualy.

Thanks!

 

[Jason Lepack]

Okay, we need to know what we're working with.

What column in Workbook A needs to be looked at to find the number.

What column in workbook B matches this number?

Are we looking at duplicate values?

Is it one worksheet in each workbook, or is there multiple sheets in
each book.

Post a sample of the data and describe exactly what you need to have
happen.

Cheers,
Jason Lepack

 

[Guest]

Assuming the item number is in cell A1 and you want to return data from
column B of Book2 and the item numbers for Book2 are in column A, you should
be able to use either

=VLOOKUP(A1, [Book2]Sheet1!$A$1:$B$10, 2, 0)
=INDEX([Book2]Sheet1!$B$1:$B$10,MATCH(A1,[Book2]Sheet1!$A$1:$A$10,0))

to bring the data from Book2 into the desired cell in Book1. Then copy/fill
the formula down as far as needed. If the data to be returned is to the left
of the item number in book2, you cannot use VLookup. You can then break the
link to Book2 and hardcode the data by selecting the column w/the Vlookup (or
Index/Match formula) and copy, then Edit/Paste Special - values.

It is usually easiest to use the mouse to select the external ranges when
you're typing in the formula (ie type =VLOOKUP(A1, then use the mouse to
select cells A1:B10 on Book2 - that way excel will put in the necessary
brackets, apostrophes, etc. that are needed for the reference to book2).