Match? Range? Input data from one column one sheet into one column on other sheet

[judasdac]

Hello Forum Participants - I've got a bit of sticky problem that I'm having a difficult time solving. I have a request for proposal worksheet that I need to populate with quantities of items that are on another worksheet. Usually I would just do a vlookup but the text is formatted so differently that the vlookup formula returns inaccurate results. I'm wondering if an index, match, range formula would work but I'm not very adept with those yet.

I'm attaching the workbook. I'm trying to populate column D on the RFP tab with the quantities in column B on the Data tab.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as right now this is a manual process that is tedious and time consuming.

Thanks!

[FDibbins]

Thats going to be a tough 1, the descriptions hardly match at all. for instance (and im sure you already know this), you have
Scissor NH - Demagnatize on sheetb
and
Scissors, Bandage, Demagnatize
Scissors, Carbide, Demagnatize
Scissors, Delicate, Demagnatize
Scissors, General, Demagnatize
etc

if you just want to add up all the scissors, that might be possible, but i doubt thats what you need. is there any way to come up with a consistant naming system?

[day92]

It might take some time but you would have to create a lookup table and do your vlookups from that. You will have the same issue with an index/match as you do with the vlookup.