Data Consolidate: Does It Really Work?
 

For a long time, I have been trying to modify an Excel list/range by using,
from the [Worksheet Main Menu], Data Consolidate. I either get a message,
"Data was not consolidated", or Excel ignores the setup that I specify in the
Consolidate dialog box and smears all the original columns over the specified
column headers, and proceeds to fill in all the data THAT IS NOT STRING/TEXT
data, i.e. dates, currency. If Consolidate won't work with a mixture of
columns, some text and some numbers, what good is it? I need the cells
containing text also!
What am I overlooking??? Thanks.
JohnS (JohnExcel)

Particulars:
Excel 2003 SP-2
Wksht 1 and Wksht 2 contain 15 or so columns and approx. 700 records of data.
Wksht C (consolidate) only has a few of those columns:
Project#
Task#
Transaction Date
ExpendType
$Amt
In Wksht C, I am selecting the upper-left header cell (Project#), then in
the dialog box I am properly referencing the ranges in Wkshts 1 and 2
including the headers, then adding each one, then clicking only the checkbox
"Use labels in Top Row."
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