Excel files matching through codes

[Gavazzi00]

Hello! I am pretty novice at Excel, so this question may end up being really dumb. But anyhow.

I am doing a workpaper that compares lobbying sectors through the money invested through each year in the House of Representatives.

But I have an issue. All the lines have a singular code (lets assume 1234-ABCD-6789). But, the three things I want (date, investment and sector, and the house) are in different files, so a single line is basically split in three, and because we purged data from all three files, we need to find a way to match all the codes who show up in both files (and gather them in a single cell) and then purge the ones who don't match.

Any ideas?

Thanks! English is not my native language, so sorry for some crude wording

 

[dougmarkham]

Hi Gavazzi00,

No problem, every has to start somewhere with Excel.

Here is some jargon to help you express yourself when talking about excel:

1) Spreadsheets are called Workbooks, or Wb for short. They come in different types: *.xls, *.xlsm, *.xltm (macro compliant); *.xlsx (standard); *.csv (comma separated values), and a few others not worth mentioning at first.
2) Individual excel tabs are called Worksheets or Ws (Sht) for short
3) There are two basic ways of classifying cells: Columns and Rows (you can say lines of data, or lines, but Rows is more universal)
Columns can be signified by letters (A, B, C, D) or numbers (x, 1), (x, 2), (x, 3), where x is the row number. Rows are signified by numbers Rows(1), or using the same format as with columns (1, y), (2, y), (3, y) etc., where y is the column number.
4) Data can be in a table. Tables can be either dynamic (excel tabled) or static forms. You can add a top-row filter to a static table and still sort/filter.
5) Field names are called Headers in excel, so if you have a field-name in Cell A1 to G1, those would be a headers. In a table, usually, all the top row are headers
6) We can refer to Ranges of data in a Ws e.g., Range("A1:G1") which means cells A1 to G1 as a group, or Range("A1:G10") meaning all cells A1 to A10, B1 to B10, C1 to C10 etc., all the way to G. If data is in a table, the whole table is the CurrentRegion.

So first, you mention "all three files". Do you mean that before the split, you have one workbook but afterwards altogether you have 3 workbooks, and that the data within these three Wbs need matching via the provided code?
And am I write in saying that there is a column (maybe column A) in each workbook that contains what you call "a singular code (lets assume 1234-ABCD-6789)"

Please screenshot the before and after situation and post them, along with descriptions of what Wb's are involved, Ws names, Headers etc. A picture is worth 1000 words (unless you have an essay to hand in).