Range Lookup in Excel – How to lookup the pricing tier? [Formulas]

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Here is a really tricky problem. Recently I was given a data set like this (shown below) and asked to find the position of lookup value in the list. The only glitch is that, instead of values, the lookup table contained lower and upper boundaries of the values. See the below illustration to understand what I mean. Range Lookup Excel - Formula for looking up a value to match corresponding range In simple words, we have to find the range that has the lookup value. Now, the problem is similar to between formula trick we discussed a few days back, yet very different. We all know that,
  • XLOOKUP formula looks up a value in a table and returns the corresponding value in next column
  • MATCH formula looks up a value and tells the position of it in a list
But neither seem to solve this problem. So I naturally turned to a cup of home brewed coffee (remember, I no longer work in a office, so I can’t rush to espresso machine) and stared long and hard out of the window (remember, I no longer go to office, that means I can sit in front of a window and work). Added in December, 2022:

We can use XMATCH:

Since we just want to know which row will contain the value, we can use XMATCH as shown below.
				
					=XMATCH(1, (B6:B15<=C3)*(C6:C15>=C3))
				
			

Ok, go ahead, I will give you a minute to soak in the awesomeness of that formula.

Are you back?, well, lets explore what this formula does.

How this works:

  • C3 contains our lookup value
  • B6:B15 has the lower boundary
  • C6:C15 has the higher boundary
  • The (B6:B15<=C3)*(C6:C15>=C3) returns a bunch of 1s or 0s. It will be 1 whenever C3 is between column B&C values and 0 otherwise.
  • XMATCH will match the first 1, ie the first row that matches the range.

Or even the SUMPRODUCT

Then I thought, “may be SUMPRODUCT formula would work for situations like these?!?”

After playing for a while, I got the perfect formula for this.

  • Assuming the value to be looked up is in cell C3
  • The start and end values are in B6:B15 and C6:C15 respectively,

We write,

				
					=SUMPRODUCT((B6:B15<=C3)*(C6:C15>=C3),ROW(B6:B15))-5
				
			

There are 3 portions in that formula,

  1. (B6:B15<=C3)*(C6:C15>=C3) part: This is checking the range B6:B15 and C6:C15 to find that one set of start and end values that would contain the value in C3. The output would be a bunch of 0s with probably a single 1
  2. ROW(B6:B15) part: This just gives running numbers from 6 to 15. When you SUMPRODUCT this with above you get a single number corresponding the row in which the match occurred
  3. -5 part: We reduce the output value by 5 since our value began in row 6, not row 1.

Use this to lookup date ranges too:

Excel Vlookup Date Ranges - Excel Formula to lookup matching date ranges

As you can guess, you can easily use the above SUMPRODUCT formula to lookup matching date ranges too a la vlookup for date ranges.

Download Range Lookup Example Workbook:

In the download workbook, you can find both examples (values and dates). Go ahead and download it. Play with it to understand range lookup formula better.

Click here to download the sample workbook.

Do you face range lookup problem?

Often, when working on project planning, I end up checking where a date falls between given set of start and end dates. Earlier, I used helper columns to solve such a problem. But the XMATCH (or SUMPRODUCT) solution above is much more elegant and scalable. Plus it is much more fun to write.

What about you?

Do you face range lookup problem often? How do you solve it? Share your techniques and tips using comments. Thank you 🙂

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21 Responses to “How to Filter Odd or Even Rows only? [Quick Tips]”

  1. Vijay says:

    Infact, instead of using =ISEVEN(B3), how about to use =ISEVEN(ROW())

    So it takes away any chance of wrong referencing.

  2. Hui... says:

    I like Daily Dose of Excel

  3. vimal says:

    I like it.

  4. Luke M says:

    Just a heads up, you do need to have the Analysis ToolPak add-in activated to use the ISEVEN / ISODD functions. An alternative to ISEVEN would be:
    =MOD(ROW(),2)=0

  5. Debbi says:

    rather than use a formula, couldn't you enter "true" in first cell and "false" in the second and drag it down and than filter on true or false.

  6. Paul S says:

    Just for clarification, is Ashish looking to filter by even or odd Characters or rows?

  7. Fred says:

    so many functions to learn!

  8. Istiyak says:

    Nice support by chandoo and team as a helpdesk. Give us more to learn and make us awesome. Always be helpful.......

  9. Arps says:

    In case you want to delete instead of filter,

    IF your data is in Sheet1 column A
    Put this in Sheet2 column A and drag down
    =OFFSET(Sheet1!A$1,(ROWS($1:1)-1)*2,,)
    (This is to delete even rows)

    To delete odd rows :
    =OFFSET(Sheet1!A$2,(ROWS($1:1)-1)*2,,)

  10. Pippa says:

    If your numbered cells did not correspond to rows, the answer would be even simpler:
    =MOD([cell address],2), then filter by 0 to see evens or 1 to see odds.

  11. Matthew D. Healy says:

    I sometimes do this using an even simpler method. I add a new column called "Sign" and put the value of 1 in the first row, say cell C2 if C1 contains the header. Then in C3 I put the formula =-1 * C2, which I copy and paste into the rest of the rows (so C4 has =-1 * C3 and so forth). Now I can just apply a filter and pick either +1 or -1 to see half the rows.

    Another way, which works if I want three possibilities: in C2 I put the value 1, in C3 I put the value 2, in C4 I put the value 3, then in C5 I put the formula =C2 then I copy C5 and paste into all the remaining rows (so C6 gets =C3, C7 gets =C4, etc.). Now I can apply a filter and pick the value 1, 2, or 3 to see a third of the rows.

    Extending this approach to more than 3 cases is left as an exercise for the reader.

  12. Paulo says:

    Another way =MOD(ROW();2). In this case, must to choose betwen 1 and 0.

  13. Makhan Butt says:

    very different style Odd or Even Rows very easy way to visit this site

    http://www.handycss.com/tips/odd-or-even-rows/

  14. Terhile says:

    Thanks for the tip, it worked like magic, saved having to delete row by row in my database.

  15. majid says:

    Thankssssssssssssssss

  16. Bhanu says:

    Hi Chandoo- First of all thanks for the trick. It helped me a lot. Here I have one more challenge. Having filtered the data based on odd. I want to paste data in another sheet adjacent to it. How can I do that?
    For Example-
    A 1 odd
    B 3 odd
    C 4 even
    D 6 even
    I have fileted the above data for odd and want to copy the "This is odd number" text in adjacent/next sheet here. How can I do that. After doing this my data should look like this
    A 1 odd This is odd number
    B 3 odd This is odd number
    C 4 even
    D 6 even

  17. Adriana says:

    Hi! Could you please help me find a formula to filter by language?
    Thank you!

  18. avinash says:

    Chandoo SIR,

    I HAVE A DATA IN EXCEL ROWS LIKE BELOW IS THERE ANY FORMULA OR A WAY WHERE I CAN INSTRUCT I CAN MAKE CHANGES , MEANS I WANT TO WRITE ONLY , THE FIG IS FRESH, BUT IN BELOW ROW IT WILL AUTOMATICALLY TAKE THE SOME WORDS FROM FIGS AND MAKE IN PLURAL FORM , WHILE USING '' ARE'' LIKE BELOW

    The fig is fresh - row 1
    Figs are fresh - row 2
    The Pomegranate is red - row 3
    Pomegranates are red - row 4

  19. Arshad Hussain Shah says:

    =IF(EVEN(A1)=A1,"EVEN - do something","ODD - do something else") with iferron (for blank Cell)

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