thanks. that works for the names, however i also need to extrat the 'meal'
next to the person. i tried the lookup but since the data is not sorted it
doesn't work. any suggestions?

"Max" wrote:

Maybe something along these lines ..

Assume you have the sample table below
in Sheet1, in A1:B10

Names Table#
Name1 2
Name2 3
Name3 4
Name4 1
Name5 3
Name6 3
Name7 4
Name8 1
Name9 2

List across in E1:H1, the 4 table numbers: 1,2,3,4

Put in E2: =IF($B2=E$1,ROW(),"")
Copy E2 across to H2, fill down to D10

In Sheet2
---------
List across in A1:D1, the 4 table numbers: 1,2,3,4

Put in A2:

=IF(ISERROR(MATCH(SMALL(Sheet1!E$2:E$10,ROWS($A$1: A1)),Sheet1!E$2:E$10,0)),"
",INDEX(Sheet1!$A$2:$A$10,MATCH(SMALL(Sheet1!E$2:E $10,ROWS($A$1:A1)),Sheet1!
E$2:E$10,0)))

Copy A2 across to D2, fill down as many rows
as was done in cols E to H in Sheet1, i.e. down to D10

The above will extract and list the names from Sheet1
under each table number

Adapt / extend to suit
--
Rgds
Max
xl 97
---
GMT+8, 1° 22' N 103° 45' E
xdemechanik <atyahoo<dotcom
----
cds wrote in message
...
page 1 of my worksheet has a list of names, meals and table numbers that I
type
page 2 has a list of table numbers (the seating chart)
how do i populate the page 2 table numbers automatically without using
pivot
tables?