Otto,

I wasn't being specific because I was planning on adapting to whatever
solution was provided (I could easily combine all the sheets into 1 workbook
if needed or vice-versa) but I can certainly be more specific.

As I have it now, each workbook file contains only 1 worksheet with the 2
columns of data (column A is the model number & B is the # of returns). I
can & will put all the workbooks for a given year in there own directory with
no other .xls files. Though you said it wouldn't matter, the files will be
named Jan-09.xls, Feb-09.xls, etc. If possible, please have the code copy
the file name into row 1 of the combined data sheet (above the associated
return data). It doesn't matter what order the return data columns are in.
I can easily rearrange if the month/file name label is in the 1st row.

Yes, you can also assume that the 'master' workbook would be in the same
directory. As for the # of sheets, it will vary depending on how far into
the year we are.

I think I've answered all your questions, but if I hadn't, let me know.

Note again, I've done a bit of VBA macro programming in Excel before, so if
you were able to post the code for the basic mechanism of opening the files,
combining the data, & eliminating duplicate model #'s, I think I could tweak
things to match my situation.

Thanks again,
Steve


"Otto Moehrbach" wrote:

You said that you had a number of "sheets" that you wanted to combine into
one sheet. Now you mention having "files". Which do you have? If you want
to combine workbooks into one "master" workbook, are all these workbooks in
one folder? Having them all in one folder, along with the "master"
workbook, and no other workbooks in that folder, would preclude having to
know the names of the workbooks. If you have workbooks, what is the layout
of those workbooks. That is, how many sheets in each, how many sheets do
you want to combine, are the sheet names pertinent, etc. Otto
"srsammsiam" wrote in message
...
Otto,

Thank you for your time & expertise!

No, I don't have a master list, so the code would need to generate that
list
by combining all the 1st columns & eliminating duplicates.

As for file names, let's keep it simple for now & assume the files are all
named "1.xls", "2.xls", etc. (I know enough programming to modify at a
later
time). If you're actually writing/adapting code could you have it ask how
many files to combine? I do this return analysis every month of the year,
so
in the early months I have less than 12 files to combine.

If easier, I could have all the files that need to be combined opened
before
running the macro.

Thanks again.
s.

"Otto Moehrbach" wrote:

Do you have a master list of all the product names or do you want the
code
to generate such a list from all the sheets? If the code generates the
list, that list would include only those products that have had at least
one
return that year. What are the names of the monthly sheets? HTH Otto
"srsammsiam" wrote in message
...
I'm guessing this is a fairly common problem. I have product return
data
for
each month in the year. Each sheet is similar: the 1st column is the
product
name & the second column is the # of returns for that product for that
month.
I would like to combine all of these sheets into a single sheet with
the
1st
column being the product name & the subsequent columns being the # of
returns
for each month in the year.

The problem I have is that if a product has no returns in any given
month,
it is not included in that months data. The upshot is that each
month's
data
has a variable # of rows & the 1st column of each month's data has some
of
the same values as the next month, but not all.

Example of the data I have:
Jan. Data: Feb. Data:
Name Returns Name Returns
product-a 2 product-b 3
product-c 5 product-c 4
product-d 4 product-d 2
product-f 2 product-e 6
product-g 1 product-f 1

Example of combined data I'd like to have:
Name Jan. returns Feb. returns
product-a 2 0
product-b 0 3
product-c 5 4
product-d 4 2
product-e 0 6
product-f 2 1
product-g 1 0

Any help you can provide in pointing me in the right direction for a
VBA
type macro to help merge these data sets would be greatly appreciated.
I'm
not even sure of the search terms to use for something like this.