John,
Not at all as out of the ordinary question as you suppose. Yes, you can
treat Excel as a SQL data source and execute queries against it as you would
a database. SQL is very powerful but not especially simple to learn and
starting by using Excel as a datasource is not the best idea. It sounds to
me like the casual comment "use SQL" to get results in Excel is a little
like telling someone who wants to get rich to "first, get a million
dollars."

Look up SQL, ADO, ODBC, MSQuery. If you search for these topics in
conjunction with Excel, you will find discussion about getting data into and
out of Excel using database-like access methods.

In Excel, look at Import External Data under the Data menu. If you think it
is worthwhile, consider putting your data into one or more tables in Access
and work with it there. Access will offer a more natural environment for
executing SQL against your data. It is relatively easy to import data from
Excel into Access.

Bob

"JohnE" wrote in message
...
I was working on a spreadsheet (xl-2k) and someone said
use a sql to get the answer. Needless to say, I looked
at them like a deer in headlights. I've been working on
spreadsheets for awhile and never heard of using sql. So,
here is the out of the ordinary question; can you use
SQL queries in Excel? If so, how is done? Or if there
is some documentation I can read about it.
Like I said, out of the ordinary.
Thanks to anyone who responds.
*** John