Auto Populate & Name Recognition

[Leigh Anne]

Can Excel 2003 recognize a name in a call in one workbook and then auto
populate the cells from the original worksheet by name recognition?

 

[Dave Peterson]

Not quite automatic...

But you can use a table on that second sheet and a formula...

Create a new table (A1:Bx, say) on a different sheet.
Give the first column (A1:Ax) a nice name.
Use Data|Validation to create a dropdown list with those options as the choice.

Use a formula in the adjacent cell to retrieve the value in the adjacent column
in the table.

=if(a1="","",vlookup(a1,sheet2!a1:bx,2,false))

Debra Dalgleish has some notes about naming the range:
http://contextures.com/xlDataVal01.html#Name

And for using =vlookup():
http://www.contextures.com/xlFunctions02.html (for =vlookup())
and
http://contextures.com/xlFunctions02.html#Trouble