Reference Formula Help

[Scott]

I have a series of data that I'm trying to create a reference for. For
example:

A B C D
1 2 3
2 4 1 5
3 2 1 4
4 3 2
5 1

Data in Column A is the name or search criteria. Columns B through ... is
the range of data I want to search. For this example, for the name or search
criteria of "3", I would like to return the number of names or search
criteria "3" appears in throughout the data range. So, for this example, 3
appears in names 1 and 4.

I tried the initial VLOOKUP search, but realized very quickly that this was
a little more complicated than that. I can have unlimited values, however
none will be duplicates.

Any ideas would be very helpful and much appreciated.

 

[Ron@Buy]

Scott if you only require the number of times that your search criteria
appears ("I would like to return the number of names"), try this: (Enter in
cell E1 and copy down)
=COUNTIF($B$1:$D$5,$A1)
Hope this helps

 

[Scott]

Essentially that is correct, however I will have at least 500 rows of data
and I don't want to simply count the number of times Column A comes up, but I
want to return the names of of the data where it appears.

With this example, I want to create another column for each row that simply
states which returns the other linked names.

For example, in Column E, I would like to return the following.
A E
1 2,3
2 1,4
3 1,4
4 2
5 2

Notice Column E searches Columns B, C, and D for what's in Column A and when
there's a match, returns the name in Column A from that matched row.