I would add an extra colum to each table with the sheet number is the column
then use a pivot table with multiple consolidated ranges - create single
page field to generate a matrix of which items are on each sheet

Example Sheet1:

col A Col B
Item Sheet
a 1
b 1
c 1
d 1

Example Sheet2:
Item Sheet
a 2
b 2
d 2
z 2


Pivot Result:

Count of Value Page1
Row Item1 Item2 Grand Total
a 1 1 2
b 1 1 2
c 1 1
d 1 1 2
z 1 1
Grand Total 4 4 8


good Luck

--
Stewart Rogers
DataSort Software, L.C.