Hi Gareth
You could do this with formulae.

Copy Sheet1 (or whichever sheet contains most of your data) to a new sheet -
Summary
On Summary, insert 2 new rows at the top.
In the first blank column after your data, enter the Sheet name from which
you want to copy the data e.g Sheet2, into the first row of that column.
In the second row of this column, enter the name of heading you want to pick
up.
In the third row, enter this formula
=IF(COUNTIF(INDIRECT(B$1&"!A:A"),$A3),
VLOOKUP($A3,INDIRECT(B$1&"!A:Z"),
MATCH(B$2,INDIRECT(B$1&"!A1:Z1"),0),0),"")

and copy down as far as required.
Repeat the procedure for as many extra columns of information you want to
pick up.

--
Regards
Roger Govier

"Gareth" wrote in message
...
Hi thomas

thank you for the help so far.

When i create a macros and enter this in. it does actually seem to work,
however it copies the data twice.


The other issue I will have soon is that I need to data to be show
horizontally; its hard to describe what i am after without sending you an
example. can i do this?

Further issues I think could arise in that the Master file with all currnt
data on it will need to be updated daily and edited. So therefore this
new
summary file will also need to be updated without having a user to do it
all.
is this possible?
I do feel that what i am asking is getting beyond excels capabilities is
this right?

For example

Worksheet 1 may contain
Name DOB Job Addres

mr X 19/09/08 cleaner 137 marther rd
Mrs C 01/01/01 teacher 5 nowhere
Mr D 20/09/08 admin 65 somewhere
Mr A 16/08/08 driver 12 park

work sheet 2 may contain further info such as

Name Qualifications telephone no
status

Mr
x................................................. ...............................................
Mrs c...................................
Mr D......................
Mr A..............

Finally to summarise all of this, i would like a summary sheet to show

name DOB job address qualifications tele no
status





So all data is present horizontallty and can be updated automatically in
the
correct fields.

I do hope this makes sense?

Thanks once again.

Gareth