If you haven’t yet created your document, open Excel, click Blank workbook (Windows only), and enter your data by column.
If your data is organized by rows instead, you’ll won’t be able to use VLOOKUP to find a value.
Lookup Value - The cell across from which the data that you want to look up is in. For example, if you want to look up data in cell F3, your lookup value will be in the third row of the spreadsheet. Table Array - Your entire table’s span from the top-left cell to the bottom-right cell (not including headers). For example, if your table starts at A2, goes down to A20, and extends over to the F column, your table goes from A2 to F20. Column Index Number - The index number of the column in which the value that you want to look up is in. A column’s “index number” refers to its order number; for example, in a spreadsheet that has data in columns A, B, and C, the index number of A would be 1, B would be 2, and C would be 3. The index number starts at 1 for the far-left column of data, so if your data starts in column F, its index number is 1. Range Lookup - You’ll normally want a precise answer for the VLOOKUP result, which can be achieved by typing in FALSE for this value. For an estimate, you can type in TRUE instead.
For example, if the lookup value is written in cell A12, you’d type A12, into the formula. You’ll separate each section of the formula with a comma, but you don’t need to use spaces.
For example, if your table goes from cell A2 to cell C20, you’d type A2:C20, into the VLOOKUP formula.
For example, if your table uses the A, B, and C columns and the data that you want is in C, you would type in 3, here.
=VLOOKUP(A12,A2:C20,3,FALSE)
