use the vlookup worksheet function in Sheet1.

See Excel help for details.

in E2 of sheet1:
=if(iserror(match(A2,Sheet2!A:A,0)),"",vlookup(A2, Sheet2!A:B,2,0))

drag fill down column E.

--
Regards,
Tom Ogilvy

"robertlewis" wrote in message
...
I am using Excel 2003have 2 worksheets, one with a full list of job data
(one
record per row) and the other with similar data but only a sub-set of the
first, where one column is common to both worksheets. I want to copy the
columns from the second worksheet onto the first one but only when the
common
data matches (in this case a unique number).
Example:
Sheet1 headings: job_no, name, date, address
Sheet2 headings: job_no, status
Result needed: job_no, name, date, address, status