What I want to do is to have a cell 'remember' a barcode that has been used
to indicate that a book has been taken out and then returned. For e.g.,

Barcode Date-Out Requested by Date-In

801010101 07/08/08 J_doe@cc[1]. xxxxxx

The 1st time the barcode is scanned for the item the date will auto populate cell 2. When it is returned, I want to be able to scan the barcode and have the 'memory' of that 1st scan auto populate the Date-in cell (cell 4) all in the same record.

Do you have any ideas to lead me to a solution?

Excel has no way of knowing that input is coming from a scanner
The user will need to move the the required cell before scanning
Or you are into some complex VBA.
best wishes
--
Bernard Liengme
Microsoft Excel MVP
http://people.stfx.ca/bliengme

"line" wrote in message
...
What I want to do is to have a cell 'remember' a barcode that has been
used
to indicate that a book has been taken out and then returned. For e.g.,

Barcode Date-Out Requested by Date-In

801010101 07/08/08 J_doe@cc[1]. xxxxxx

The 1st time the barcode is scanned for the item the date will auto
populate cell 2. When it is returned, I want to be able to scan the
barcode and have the 'memory' of that 1st scan auto populate the Date-in
cell (cell 4) all in the same record.

Do you have any ideas to lead me to a solution?

I think in this situation you'd probably be better off using some sort of
specialized software to do a library function. I'm sure there's plenty out
there that will do what you're looking for with far less pain and suffering
on your part.

"line" wrote:

What I want to do is to have a cell 'remember' a barcode that has been used
to indicate that a book has been taken out and then returned. For e.g.,

Barcode Date-Out Requested by Date-In

801010101 07/08/08 J_doe@cc[1]. xxxxxx

The 1st time the barcode is scanned for the item the date will auto populate cell 2. When it is returned, I want to be able to scan the barcode and have the 'memory' of that 1st scan auto populate the Date-in cell (cell 4) all in the same record.

Do you have any ideas to lead me to a solution?

Thank you Bernard,
The barcode is scanned into a cell, so there is no need to have excel read
directly from a scanner. So far I've been able to use an IF function from
the scanned barcode to create a checkout date, but I need to create a VLOOKUP
function argument that will match the 2nd time the barcode is scanned into a
cell to create a checkin date.

"Bernard Liengme" wrote:

Excel has no way of knowing that input is coming from a scanner
The user will need to move the the required cell before scanning
Or you are into some complex VBA.
best wishes
--
Bernard Liengme
Microsoft Excel MVP
http://people.stfx.ca/bliengme

"line" wrote in message
...
What I want to do is to have a cell 'remember' a barcode that has been
used
to indicate that a book has been taken out and then returned. For e.g.,

Barcode Date-Out Requested by Date-In

801010101 07/08/08 J_doe@cc[1]. xxxxxx

The 1st time the barcode is scanned for the item the date will auto
populate cell 2. When it is returned, I want to be able to scan the
barcode and have the 'memory' of that 1st scan auto populate the Date-in
cell (cell 4) all in the same record.

Do you have any ideas to lead me to a solution?