Merging two spreadsheets

Hi Ross

Attached is your file with an example of how to create the Master Sheet.

I have used the INDEX MATCH function to pull your two sheets together - the reason for using this instead of a VLOOKUP is that rather than having to manually count across to find the column index number, you can just insert the name at the top of the column you want to return information from (you can see in your example this is just Column 19 etc).

By using the Runner ID to search you can overcome the problem of not pulling in all the information (this will mean that the Race ID is repeated many times, but this is normal).

You also had a formatting problem - the Race ID numbers were formatted as text. I've fixed this in your example but you can do this yourself by selecting the column, going to the Data ribbon, selecting Text to Columns, then clicking finish. The formatting of your lookup value and your lookup column must be EXACTLY the same, so this is another reason you were having issues.

Hopefully this answers your questions. Please let us know if you have any further problems.

Kind Regards,

Sarah Reid
Excel Trainer