Here is a question someone asked me in a class recently.
I know how to use VLOOKUP to find a value based on search term. But I have a slight variation to it. I need to extract value below the cell VLOOKUP finds.
This is simpler than it sounds.
We can use INDEX + MATCH formulas to do this.
The syntax is like below:
=INDEX( value column, MATCH (search what, search column, 0) + 1 )
Why it works?
MATCH formula finds the position of what you are searching. By adding 1 to it and extracting the corresponding “values column”, we can get VLOOKUP + 1 value.
Homework for you
If you think finding VLOOKUP+1 is easy then I have a challenge for you.
Find the last match. Lets say in a table you have multiple items matching lookup value. How would you find the last item. Assume what you are finding is in A1, list is in C1:D20 and we want the value in 2nd column.
Go ahead and post your answers in comments section.

















2 Responses to “Interview With Presentation Zen’s Garr Reynolds on Charting & Telling Stories”
Most experts recommend using shades of one color for quantitative differences and different hues for qualitative differences.
@Naomi.. that is a good point. I agree with you