Pretty sure this should be a FAQ item, but searches don't show any recent
links to the FAQs. A simple URL might be sufficient, but the Web searches
have been all over the place so far, which mostly suggests that I'm using
the wrong lexicon for Excel searches...

This is actually for a database application, but the original database is
more or less orphaned, and the partial Perl port is too painful, so I'm
exploring whether or not an Excel solution is possible. Well, actually from
what I've already learned, I'm pretty sure it is possible, but it might be
too ugly... Easier for me to describe it in database terms, but I'll try to
reword this in spreadsheet terms. (Of course, corrections to appropriate
lingo are appreciated, too.)

There are two large sheet and several smaller sheets. When adding an entry
to the largest sheet, there is a point where it should check some of the
information in the second largest sheet (about 2,000 rows). The
implementation I want would be rather like a combo box. As you enter
letters, it would show you the top candidates from the second sheet, and if
all of those candidates were eliminated, it would let you add a new row for
the second sheet.

Not sure if it will help, but in more concrete terms it involves a growing
list (actually a relational database table) of books (currently about 2,500)
and the associated authors or editors (currently about 2,000). Other lists
include things like subjects (about 75?).

So far I've only addressed the input side of it, though there are various
outputs from the database versions of the system. First things first,
however.