Looking for a way to search two or more excel sheets for matching/un matching data.

They are separate work books, but are in the same format/column row layout.

If I can't search totally different excel books, I would be willing to try to move them all to diff sheets in same book.

Thanks

Are you looking to search for specific differences or just be provided a list of differences?

if you know how to search other sheets in the same workbook, just sub in the other workbook name.
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Create-an-external-reference-link-to-a-cell-range-in-another-workbook-c98d1803-dd75-4668-ac6a-d7cca2a9b95f

Not 100% sure what you are trying to do, but if you are looking to compare two seperate Excel files you can use this website and/or pay to download the full app:  https://www.diffnow.com/

I've used to compare contracts for changes in both Word and PDF formats.  You can mix formats too.

if you're looking to simply see if records are on one another, just do a quick vlookup

Basically I have several workbooks of data. The data is in a similar layout, in terms of categories.

I'd like to compare workbook 1, to work book 2 in certain areas/columns, and workbook 2 to workbook three.

Trying to find out what workbook 1 has data wise that another work book has or doesn't have,etc.

I've been messing with this on and off for a few days after searching, and earlier suggestions and I'm still having a hard time.

Say I have a workbook called, workbook1.xls, and another called workbook2.xls.

They each have the same columns/rows and titles, although varying amounts of data.

In workbook 1, I have column a (name), in column 2  (phone number)

In workbook 2, I have column a (Some of the names from wb1, but some are different), and in column 2 (Nothing).

What kind of formula would I need to use such that I could match the name column in workbook 2 with wb 1, and every time there was a match it would add the text from column 2 on wb 1, to wb 2?

So you have to put the formula in workbook 2, column 2.
I kind of hate Vlookup but here is the basic parts that matter.
=VLOOKUP(Sheet2!A1,A2:B10,2,TRUE)

=SUM('C:\Reports\[Budget.xlsx]Annual'!C10:C25)


So for what you describe
in cell b2 in workbook 2
=VLOOKUP(A2,'C:\workbook1\[workbook1.xlsx]TAB1'A2:B10,2,TRUE)

In theory should work.

so A2 is in workbook2 looking at the first name in that column.
It will then check workbook1 Column A starting at row 2 till row 10. Make that whatever you need.
2 means it will pull from column 2 on the same row where a2 matched.
If you copy and past this into your cells, it should auto index for the rows.
You may have to correct the b10 part to not continuously move down further.