Mike

Do you still have the earlier file? If so you might be better working forward from that again (if you still have the syntax). I've just done a merge of three files (all cases common variables in file1, half cases,but different variables in file2, other half of cases and different variables again in file3) for someone with a similar problem (first time in 20-odd years) and it actually worked first time! One common variable appeared twice, but that was because it had a different spelling in one file.

John ----- Original Message ----- From: Mike Pritchard To: 'ViAnn Beadle' ; 'John F Hall' ; SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: Monday, September 13, 2010 4:43 PM Subject: RE: Merge problems

Sorry for my lack of clarity. There is a subset of variables in the latest working file (that has been modified through coding/recoding and labeling) that is also in the other file. The other file is an earlier version with a few additional variables that were dropped inadvertently from the working file when some operations - primarily SAVE with a different order - were done. So I needed to recover these variables.

I don't think UPDATE would work in this case, and there is no need to rename as the variables are not duplicates.

Thanks for your help. Mike