Forum Discussion
How to use codes and organizing data from a secondary source
Well, the first bit of help is something you'll have to do yourself, I'm afraid. Right now, it's clear you're overwhelmed by the enormity of the task facing you. But in order for anybody at a distance to help, you're going to need to become a bit more specific in what comprises those "million columns" of data, what kind of data it is, what you want to do with it. Quite a bit more specific, in fact. And what is that "codebook" from the CDC?
If you can, assuming this is all data in the public domain, you could post a copy of what you're looking at here on this website.
But also, seriously, what is your goal in sorting through it? There are multiple ways to do sift and sort data in Excel, but it would not be helpful to you as a novice with Excel for anybody to give general or abstract directives.