Lookups in Excel - How?

Feek · 9 Nov 2008 at 17:14

I'm doing some stuff in Excel which I think needs a lookup table of some sort.

Basically I have a number of items and an associated number. I need to select the item using a drop-down and then have the associated number appear in a cell next to the item.

How do I do this? I'm sure it's something simple.

Ta.

Jed Shields · 9 Nov 2008 at 17:19

Sounds like a simple vlookup formula:

vlookup(A1,B1:C20,2,false)

Where:

A1 is the value you're looking for

B1:C20 is the data table range - so in Column B would be your list that appears in the dropdown list, column C is the associated numbers

The 2 means that once the forumla finds the item then it returns the value from column 2 ie column C
False - this just makes sure that the formula pulls out an exact match.

Feek · 9 Nov 2008 at 17:49

All is done, ta

Jed Shields · 9 Nov 2008 at 18:09

Nice and simple.

You can also do a HLOOKUP that looks horizontally rather than vertically.