Thankyou, and was just about to reply with answer I figured out. as "data"
sits, think your answer same as / would be correct if cut-past column
searching to column "A", then place column data need in 2nd column, hence "2"
in equation:

=VLOOKUP(V2,[file.xls]a!$A$2:$B$3355,2,FALSE)

i.e. did not know what equation was doing: is compare v2 to columns A/B, A
is searched first?, then return 2nd column data,false means exact, true
requires data be sorted in ascending order...? thanks

"Nick Hodge" wrote:

Then you need to use column A in the lookup range

=IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(V124,[file.xls]a!$A$2:$A$3355,1,0)),"dif","")


--
HTH
Nick Hodge
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Southampton, England
www.nickhodge.co.uk
HIS


"nastech" wrote in message
...
Hi, I am trying to mirror the info from a different workbook, into work
column of new book. need to get data into new sheet. so far have
equation
that shows for duplicate records, but am trying to get info from different
column in old book:

have:
=IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(V124,[file.xls]a!$V$2:$V$3355,1,0)),"dif","")

need to have data from column a in the file.xls thanks.