[thelist] Merge two Excel databases?

[Matt Warden]

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 11:58:23 -0400, Theodore Serbinski
<tserbinski at washsq.com> wrote:
> My question therefore, is there an easy way to compare both of these
> Excel databases and merge the data as necessary and add fields from one
> to the other?

Ted,

I have had to do this before. Those Marketing folk love their Excel.

I'll tell you how I did it. I can't say that this is the best way, but
this is what was best for me since I don't ever use Excel.

1. Import into access each excel file (so, you will have two tables in
the Access db, one for each excel file).
2. Create a third table which has a schema which is the union of the
two excel schemas (i.e., has all possible fields).
3. Merge (see below)

Now, you can probably merge with a nice 'select into' SQL statement,
or maybe there is even a cool feature of access. I couldn't do this,
because for those fields which did not exist in the source excel file
for a given record, I needed to use certain rules to supply values if
possible. For example, if all we had was a mobile phone number, maybe
I was supposed to copy that also into the work phone field.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask either here or offlist.

Good luck,



-- 
Matt Warden
Miami University
Oxford, OH
http://mattwarden.com


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