Excel 2002 SP3
Win XP HE SP1

hi,
altho i have done this countless times in the past, i can't get my
vlookup to work (i'm a bit rusty on it).

i have 2 separate sheets in 2 separate xls files.

sheet a) has a table with columns a,b,c,d,e and rows 2 to 300. all cells
are populated with text, names, etc.

sheet b) has same a,b,c,d,e column headers but rows 2 to 900.

only column c is populated with a key (or id) in sheet b).

there are many matches/duplicates in sheet b) that are contained in
sheet a) based on the key/id in column c.

i am trying to populate the corresponding cells in sheet b columns
a,b,d,e based on the matching values in column c common to both sheets
a) and b) but not on same rows.

sheet b)

a    b    c    d    e
        key       
        key       
        key       

sheet a)

a    b    c    d    e
value    value    key    value    value
value    value    key    value    value
value    value    key    value    value

the data/cells is definitely formatted as text; and sorted identically
even tho there are row breaks between matches in both sheets (but in any
event, since i use "False" in the vlookup formula, there sd not be a
need to sort.)

when i use "true" in the vlookup formula, values are returned that are
all contained in 1 row on sheet a)--however, values returned are NOT the
ones corresponding to row where lookup value is, so there is an offset
unfortunately.

i can't figure out how to populate the cells i need in sheet b) based on
column c) match between both sheets.

any suggestions?

i hope i am not too confusing in my description.........