Sorting or maybe merging???

**blakrapter** · 11-20-2005, 02:14 PM

Hello everyone,

I am new here and fairly new to the advanced features of excel. I have used excel for years now, but mainly to just add/subtract/divide etc.. I did a search for my question and didn't find anything, probably because I don't really know what the proper term is for what I am trying to do.

Let me try to explain. I have 2 spreadsheet files, one of which has product numbers in one column and product prices in another. The other spreadsheet has product item numbers in one column, and product descriptions in the other. I need to get them both in the same sheet with everything matched properly relative to the item number.

Here is the problem. The spreadsheets are from 2 different sources. One contains old, current, and future products while the other contains just current and a few old ones. So, I cannot just sort the list by item number and copy&paste. If I just copy&paste in order, I will end up matching the wrong descriptions with the wrong product number and run out of descriptions before I run out of products. Unfortunatly, there isn't an apparent pattern to what each spreadsheet does and does not contain. For instance, the spreadsheet that contains current and some old products does not contain ALL the old products, and the ones that it does contain follow no specific order (ie, its not like it contains all products after item number xxxxxxxx and doesn't before xxxxxxx.) The only way I see to do it is to somehow tell excel to go down the list of item numbers and match the ones that are one each sheet, when it finds a match, transfer the price or product description to the other sheet.

How do I do this? I will appreciate any help on this matter. Thanks!

Barb Reinhardt · 11-20-2005, 03:40 PM

Assuming the product numbers match on both sheets, you could use the VLOOKUP
function. Do a search on it within HELP.

"blakrapter" <[email protected]> wrote
in message news:[email protected]...
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> I am new here and fairly new to the advanced features of excel. I have
> used excel for years now, but mainly to just add/subtract/divide etc..
> I did a search for my question and didn't find anything, probably
> because I don't really know what the proper term is for what I am
> trying to do.
>
> Let me try to explain. I have 2 spreadsheet files, one of which has
> product numbers in one column and product prices in another. The other
> spreadsheet has product item numbers in one column, and product
> descriptions in the other. I need to get them both in the same sheet
> with everything matched properly relative to the item number.
>
> Here is the problem. The spreadsheets are from 2 different sources.
> One contains old, current, and future products while the other contains
> just current and a few old ones. So, I cannot just sort the list by
> item number and copy&paste. If I just copy&paste in order, I will end
> up matching the wrong descriptions with the wrong product number and
> run out of descriptions before I run out of products. Unfortunatly,
> there isn't an apparent pattern to what each spreadsheet does and does
> not contain. For instance, the spreadsheet that contains current and
> some old products does not contain ALL the old products, and the ones
> that it does contain follow no specific order (ie, its not like it
> contains all products after item number xxxxxxxx and doesn't before
> xxxxxxx.) The only way I see to do it is to somehow tell excel to go
> down the list of item numbers and match the ones that are one each
> sheet, when it finds a match, transfer the price or product description
> to the other sheet.
>
> How do I do this? I will appreciate any help on this matter. Thanks!
>
>
> --
> blakrapter
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