How To Use Vlookup

When using the vlookup function in excel you can have multiple lookup tables.

Food open now. You provide a name or lookup value that tells vlookup in which row or record of the data table to look for the desired information. Vlookupb2c2e73true in this example b2 is the first argumentan element of data that the function needs to work. You can use the if function to check whether a condition is met and return one lookup table if true and another lookup table if false.

The formula in h7 retrieves the first name michael after typing aya into cell h4. To use wildcards with vlookup you must specify exact match mode by providing false or 0 for the last argument rangelookup. The hardest part of using vlookup is understanding exactly what its for.

If your data is organized by rows instead youll wont be able to use vlookup to find a value. Heres an example of how to use vlookup. Whenever you use vlookup you have to provide the column number from where you want to retrieve data.

Specify the column number which vlookup will use to find the relevant data in the colindexnum box. Specify the data which you want vlookup to use for its search in the tablearray box. Vlookup normally returns a single field of data as its output.

Check out our functions lesson from our excel formulas tutorial or select a specific version of excel. Vlookup only works with data thats organized in columns eg in vertical sections meaning that your data most likely has headers in the top row of cells but not in the far left column of cells. Select cell e4 and enter the vlookup function shown below.

For vlookup this first argument is the value that you want to find. Before you start you should understand the basics of functions. Vlookupe2b4f172false first name of the employee vlookupe2b4f173false last name of the employee.

For instance you can use vlookup to retrieve values from a table after typing in only part of a lookup value. Create two named ranges. The range of cells in which the vlookup will search for the lookupvalue and the return value.

How it does this is. Vlookup retrieves information from a databaselist based on a supplied instance of the unique identifier. In the example above you would insert the vlookup function into another spreadsheet with an item code and it would.

The first column in the cell range must contain the lookupvalue. You can use a named range or a table and you can use names in the argument instead of cell references. Vlookup is an extremely useful tool and learning how to use it is easier than you think.

So lets see if we can get that clear first. Excels vlookup function which stands for vertical lookup can be used to look up specific information located in a table of data or database. Our tablearray contains 5 columns.