searching for an identical value from another workbook, or better still counting the numbe

First of all, this may seem easy if you know the answer, but I have been searching this on many forums/google, and have not found the answer.

Ok I have a worksheet (a sort of database). Column A has the Reference code (e.g. TE123), and all the other columns have the related information

I have another workbook (a timetable) where I manually enter the reference number, and the information provided pull through. (This has to be a manual entry, so I can decided where to put it.

All I want to do, is to get a formula/warning, that shows any reference code that has not been entered into the timetable.
So effectively, i need a formula that searches the whole of the timetable, and returns a value of false if not found.
Better still, it would return a value of how many times the value was found

Many thanks in advance.

Simon

Look into using COUNTIF, like:

=IF(COUNTIF(Sheet1!A:A,D2)>0,"present","Absent")

assuming your manual entry is in D2.

Hope this helps.

Pete

Many thanks for your very quick reply.

Ok I think that works.
Is it possible for it to show the number of times the value is found, rather than absent or not absent?

...I think i could perhaps find an array formula, but in the past arrays have always made everything really slow and cumbersome, so would be awesome if it wasn't an array formula

Many thanks

You could just do this:

=COUNTIF(Sheet1!A:A,D2)

Hope this helps.

Pete

great thank you.
i thought it was stupidly obvious and simple. many thanks.