I was hoping for a non-programming solution but can't find any
current excel NG more appropriate than this one.

I have a workbook with sheets for each month. I want to find all
rows where column k contains a particular word and total all the
values from colum L on those rows

ie they are expenses claim for each month, I want to add all
particular claims for, say, fuel.

I can combine the sheets and do a find all which would tell me
how many rows but is there a way to do that bit more without a
macro?

The SUMIF worksheet function may help. You need one for each sheet and then
you can sum them to get the great total. Example where the numbers in
L1:L20 that have "xx" in column K are summed:

=SUMIF(K1:K20,"xx",L1:L20)

--
Jim Rech
Excel MVP