oops, took out OR, should work, arrays.. added note to vlookup.. thanks
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060212 VLOOKUP 1 stop 3 steps: count dup's, compare dif's, merge
figured out half, got half from posts, thanks..

working: (count duplicates, get "dif" from new to old sheet & merge data
with VLOOKUP..)
=IF(OR(V9={"",".",".sym."},COUNTIF($V$90:$V$3162,V 9)=1),"",COUNTIF($V$90:$V$3162,V9)) gets count same sheet

=IF(V244={"",".",".sym."},"",IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(V1,[file.xls]sheet!$A$1:$A$3355,1,0)),"dif",""))
gets dif from diff sheet (should sort whole sheet, to 1 continuous sort..)

=VLOOKUP(V244,[file.xls]sheet!$A$1:$B$3355,2,FALSE) WORKS FINE, sort dif's
out, else AGAIN: MUST SORT SHEET FOR GOOD RECORDS ONLY, WITH ABOVE top 2 EQ's
(use to bring in data from different sheet, copy-paste special: values of
new info on top of old, by using a temporary work column)


alternate formulas
=IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(V244,[file.xls]sheet!$A$1:$B$3355,2,FALSE)),"",VLOOKUP(V244,[file.xls]sheet!$A$1:$B$3355,2,FALSE))
will get rid of n/a's, but do not want to copy blanks over other data
anyways, etc.
or:
=IF(V124={"",".",".sym."},"",VLOOKUP(V124,[file.xls]sheet!$A$1:$B$3355,2,FALSE)
which is an array formula, it should be committed with Ctrl-Shift-Enter,
not just Enter.