VLOOKUP may not make you tall, rich and famous, but learning it can certainly give you wings. It makes you to connect two different tabular lists and saves a ton of time. In my opinion understanding VLOOKUP, INDEX and MATCH worksheet formulas can transform you from normal excel user to a data processing beast.
Today, lets understand how to use these formulas better.
What is the syntax for Match, Vlookup and INDEX?
Here is the syntax for these three very powerful functions in plain English:
What are vlookup () and match () ?
VLOOKUP and MATCH are your way of asking excel to find a needle in haystack. Imagine you have all your customer contact information in one sheet in the range A1:D5000 in the format phone number, name, city and date of birth. Now you need to find out which customer has the phone number “936-174-5910”. How do you do it?
You guessed it right, you use VLOOKUP and summon excel to do the search and return with customer name.
While VLOOKUP is used to fetch value a based on what you are looking for, MATCH is used to fetch the position of the value you are looking for.
See this illustration to understand :
What does VLOOKUP really do?
Imagine you have a list of data like this:
Now, how do you answer the question – “How many sales did Jimmy make?“
Yes, your guess is right. VLOOKUP is one of the formulas you can use to answer questions like this.
VLOOKUP searches a list for a value in left most column and returns corresponding value from adjacent columns.
So, in our case, we need VLOOKUP to search for Jimmy and return the amount of sales he made from column 3.
VLOOKUP Syntax & Examples:
The syntax of VLOOKUP is simple:
=VLOOKUP( this value, your data table, column number, optional is your table sorted?)
Here is an example to get you started:
Learn more about VLOOKUP Formula with examples
Please check out this page for 10+ examples of VLOOKUP and how to use it to solve real world problems.
VLOOKUP Examples & Homework
I have made a small excel file detailing 4 VLOOKUP formula examples. The file also contains some home work so that you can practice this formula.
Download VLOOKUP Example Workbook
[NEW] XLOOKUP replaces VLOOKUP in Excel 365
If you are using Excel 365, you can use the new & improved XLOOKUP function. It offers a shorter & more versatile syntax for performing lookups.
For ex: the same lookup as above will be done with XLOOKUP like below:
=XLOOKUP(“Jimmy”, A2:A14, C2:C14) will lookup “Jimmy” in column A and return sales amount from Column C.
Click here to learn more about XLOOKUP.
So what is INDEX() then?
INDEX function is your way of telling excel to fetch a value from large range of values. Since MATCH() function can tell us where the data is found, you can then use INDEX() function to extract corresponding data from another column. In this case, we can use MATCH() to find out which row has net sales 1,799 and INDEX() to return the name of the person. Like this:
Find the position of 1,799 in sales: =MATCH(1799, $C$2:$C$14, 0)
The answer will be 8.
To find the 8th person in names list, we can use INDEX() function like this:
=INDEX($A$2:$A$14, 8)
The answer will be Jagjit.
Related: Learn more about INDEX Formula.
So how are INDEX() and MATCH() linked to each other?
Since MATCH returns the position of the item you are looking for in a list, you can then use this position in INDEX to fetch values surrounding the searched value.
So, we can combine both functions like this:
=INDEX($A$2:$A$14, MATCH(1799, $C$2:$C$14, 0))
This combination is called as INDEX+MATCH formulas.
Related: Using INDEX + MATCH functions & INDEX+MATCH Video
Finally
Remember, both VLOOKUP and MATCH throw a fail error of #N/A if the value you are looking for is not there. If you want to stop seeing the error, use IFERROR function.
Just use them with some dummy data, play around with arguments and see how you can say “oh yeah, I can do that in few minutes” to your boss next time.
VLOOKUP tutorial – video
Please watch this quick video tutorial to understand all these concepts and how to write VLOOKUP formulas easily.
INDEX MATCH Tutorial – Video
Want to Learn More Formulas? Get my VLOOKUP book
If you want to learn VLOOKUP and other Excel lookup functions, then consider getting my VLOOKUP book.
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Comprehensive and easy to understand
This is a book for everyone who uses Vlookup. Most of us think… Oh.. I already know the function. But this book will open your eyes to some brilliant techniques. – By Dr. Nitin Paranjape Solid introduction to lookup functions
This books does a wonderful job of taking each of the lookup functions available in Excel, breaking them down to a simple, easy-to-understand level. – by Lucas Moraga |
20 Responses to “Untrimmable Spaces – Excel Formula”
Hi Chandoo,
First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Wish you and your family another fruitful year ahead.
To answer your question: Power Query is the best way to trim. 🙂
Btw, if Power Query is not available, then formula would absolutely do... but did you forget to mention also Char 32?
One more question: Is the trailing minus meant to be a negative number? Maybe only the sender knows... 🙂
Cheers,
I just see your PQ way, it is amazing, I think it is the most simple way.
No idea how it did it?
I know these spaces can be a real pain but these days I advise Excel users to learn and use Flash Fill and that will learn what to do pretty quickly.
Highlight range to be cleaned. Then, in Replace, hold down the Alt key and type 0160. Replace with nothing.
I accomplished this by writing a macro to go through all the possible unprintable characters. Looped through the range.
@Steve
Brute force works just as well, its just slower
I use a different method here. First, I will copy the data from Excel and paste it in a notepad. In Notepad, I will do a Find Blanks (Space " ") and Replace (Empty) with nothing.
Then you can copy the data from Notepad and paste it back to Excel which will be a perfect number as you desire.
But Thanks for the formula. Its probably the 2nd out of 8 tricks as Chandoo mentioned. Waiting for the rest among 8 from other users 🙂
Hi....
You don't always need notepad for that. I use the Find/Replace is Excel works just fine.
I don't understand the x's. Why weren't they removed in the formula? Or are they part of some sort of numeric formatting that I'm not familiar with? I saw how you handled the non-breaking spaces and the dashes, but am confused about what role the x's played in all this.
Thanks!
Hi Andrew ,
The xs have been used solely to demarcate the actual data text ; thus , without the x in place at the end of text , as in :
x 4,124,500.00 x
it would be impossible to know that there are unwanted trailing characters , in this case , after the last 0.
These xs are not part of the original data text , nor are they used in the formulae ; they are put in only so that readers can visualize the individual items of data as they are in practice. Think of them as imaginary delimiters.
Oh, that makes sense! Thank you for the explanation. I had a feeling it was something along those lines.
You can type this character using the Keys Alt+0160.
Very useful to replace this Character using Find and Select resource.
For many years, my jobs have included ETL tasks and I built this macro to help long, long ago. I tweak it every now and again. Many co-workers, past and present, have it wired to a button on their toolbar.
Sub Clean_and_Trim()
'CAUTION: Strips leading zeroes -- do not use on zipcodes, etc.
If Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic Then
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual
Revert = 1
ElseIf Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual Then
Revert = 0
End If
For Each Cell In Selection
For x = Len(Cell.Value) To 1 Step -1
If Asc(Mid(Cell.Value, x, 1)) = 160 Then
Cell.Replace What:=Chr(160), Replacement:=" ", LookAt:=xlPart, MatchCase:=True
End If
If Asc(Mid(Cell.Value, x, 1)) = 32 Then
Cell.Replace What:=Chr(32), Replacement:=" ", LookAt:=xlPart, MatchCase:=True
End If
Next x
If Cell.Value "" Then
Cell.Value = Application.Clean(Application.Trim(Cell.Value))
End If
Next
If Revert = 1 Then
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic
ElseIf Revert = 0 Then
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual
End If
End Sub
This is awesome! What if you have several characters you need to have removed? What would be the easiest way as I can imagine there are several ways.?
# - 35
$ - 36
- 62
/ - 47
, - 44
. - 46
" - 34
: - 58
This is typical case of a Fitbit data export to Csv file. Each number has CHAR160 as thousand separator.. how smart Fitbit, thank you 😉
By the way, i prefer to copy the character, and use find and replace.
Sometimes it happens if you copy a table from outlook and paste it in excel. When you apply formula on those cells you will get error. What i use to do is
copy one character that looks like space,
select the entire range,
go to Find and replace,
Paste the copied character in Find option
Leave the replace option unfilled..
click on replace all..
All the errors shall be converted in to proper values..
Process looks lengthier.. but it is one of the simplest method
If Clean, Trim, and Substitute, or Find and Replace does not complete the job, I usually enter a value of 1 in an empty cell. Copy the Value of 1, Highlight the range of text numbers, and Paste Special, Values, Multiply. This site is great!
You can use Dose for Excel Add-In that can quickly clean huge data with one click besides more than +100 new functions and features to add to your Excel to save time and effort.
https://www.zbrainsoft.com
Hi,
I have a problem in excel. The sheet attached herewith.
TABLE CONFIG 2/6
A B C D E F G H
1 WEIGHT1 43,599 WEIGH2 62500 WEIGHT3 77000 WEIGHT4 66,500
2 DEDUCTION1 15,000 DEDUCTION1 15,000 TEMP 0 DEDUCTION2 11,005
3 RESULT 58,599 RESULT-1 77,500 RESULT-2 77,000 RESULT-3 77,505
4 RESULT SUBSTRACT 0 0 0
5 REQUIRED VALUE 77,500 77,000 77,505
Note: 1- RESULT (58599) IS TO BE DEDUCTION EITHER FROM D4 OR F4 OR H4 WHICHEVER IS MOST
LEAST CELL AMONG RESULT-1 OR RESULT-2 OR RESULT 3.
2-HENCE, RESULT VALUE $B$3 IS TO BE PRESENTED ON CELL EITHER D4 OR F4 OR H4 WHICHER IS
MOST LEAST VALUE
3-FORMULA =IF(E8<H8,$B$9,IF(E8<J8,$B$9,IF(H8<J8,$B$9,IF(H8<E8,$B$9,IF(J8<H8,$B$9))))))
CREATED ON CELL D4,F4 & H4 DID NOT WORK.
PLS FOR YOUR HELP.
THANK YOU
@R
Why not ask the question in the Chandoo.org Forums
https://chandoo.org/forum/
You can attach a file there