Merging two data sets

Ok, I've had a terrible time finding the answer to this question, because I don't know the right terms to use to search for an answer...Ah, the downfalls of search engines.

Anyway, this is my problem. I've got a long column of data with lots of names, many repeated (they're invoices, so the same person ends up repeating a lot). I've also got a table that has two columns: one for the names, alphabetically, and one with a title for each person (definitions, if you will). What I need to do is get the definitions from the second table to be printed into a new column on my first sheet next to the big column of names.

Let me know if that was horribly confusing...

I was looking at vlookup and index functions, but it wasn't really working out. What is the correct way to do this?

Thank you very much for any help!

Try this
Put formula in cell where you want the data to appear.

=VLOOKUP("Name",Sheet1!A1:B600,2)

Name will be the name of person you are looking for.
Sheet1: will be the whole range where you are pulling the data from. Include everything.
2(or B) is the column where the definition is.

you are on the right track. use either vlookup or index/match. For this example, I would use vlookup.


an example may help

Perfect. Not sure why I wasn't able to get that to work before...

Thanks so much for the help.