VLOOKUP

VLOOKUP (Vertical Lookup) searches for a value in the first column of a range and returns a corresponding value from another column in the same row.

Syntax

=VLOOKUP(lookup_value, table_array, col_index_num, [range_lookup])

• lookup_value - the value you want to find.
• table_array - the range that contains the data.
• col_index_num - the column number (counting from the left of the range) to return.
• range_lookup - FALSE for an exact match, TRUE for an approximate match.

Example

=VLOOKUP("Noida", A2:C50, 3, FALSE)
' Looks for "Noida" in column A and returns the value from column C in that row

Common Pitfall

Forgetting to set the last argument to FALSE is one of the most common VLOOKUP mistakes - Excel then performs an approximate match, which can silently return the wrong row on unsorted data.