weeding out overlapping items

[Madenjl]

I have a variety of spreadsheets that I need to narrow down to one population.

There is one massive spreadsheet that contains the majority of information on all spreadsheets.

There are several smaller spreadsheets that contain information that sometimes overlaps what is in the massive spreadsheet.

I want to remove all the overlapping information from the smaller spreadsheets from the massive spreadsheet.

In short, I want the massive spreadsheet to contain only unique lines that do not overlap with content in the other spreadsheets.

There is one identifying number that can be used for filtering or sorting - an ID of sorts.

Any ideas?

[cwinters]

it may not be elegant, but here is a solution.

1) cut and paste all the spreadsheets, including the massive on, into a new MASTER spreadsheet.

2) sort ascending by the unique ID number

( now I am assuming the ID# is in column A)

3) insert a blank column B

4) starting at B2, create the formula =if(a2=a1,"REPEAT,"") Fill this formula down t the end

5) cut the output of column B and paste it back using edit|paste special|values

6) sort by column B ascending.

7) delete all rows that say "REPEAT" in column B

8) voila, your done

[SPenney]

if your unique Identifier is in Column A....

=countif(A:A,A1)

It counts the number of entries that you have -- no need to have them sorted in any order.


Cheers

Stacie