With both workbooks open, you can actually use the VLOOKUP() formula to echo
the values from the 'dams' workbook into the 'master' workbook based on the
identifier column.

Caveats:
#1 to update, both books have to be open.
#2 sheets in 'dams' have to be set up to use VLOOKUP() which means the
identifier column would have to be in a column to the left of any information
you want to return from a matched row on that sheet.

If this is a one time deal, after setting up the VLOOKUP() getting all the
information to appear in the 'master' book, you could then select all of the
cells with the data in them and use Edit | Copy followed by Edit | Paste
Special w/[Values] selected which will convert the formulas to their value
and break the link between the two workbooks.

If you need to update 'dams' frequently, then you can leave the VLOOKUP()
formulas in place and just know that unless both workbooks are open, the data
may not be current, Excel will retain the last current information.

"A Ford" wrote:

I have a worksheet called "master" that includes a column called
"identifier" which is an ID name. There are several occurrences of each
"identifier" value in the column. I have another worksheet called "dams" that
contains the same "identifier" column, but with only one occurrence of each
"identifier" value in the column. The only data in common between the two
worksheets is the "identifier" column. I would like to merge the two
worksheets by having excel match the "identifier" name in the two worksheets
and transfer the associated cells in each the row from the "dams" worksheet
to the "master" worksheet. This will result in an addition of several columns
of data to the "master" worksheet from the "dams" worksheet.

Seems that there must be a simple way to do this, but I have not been able
to figure it out (I am not too experienced in Excel). I tried the
"consolidate" feature, but that seems to be limited to numerical formulae,
and I just want to transfer text from each cell.
--
A Ford