excelexcel-formulavlookupworksheet-functionexcel-match

VLOOKUP giving #N/A and I have no idea why


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Why doesn't this work? I tried checking for whitespace, made sure length was the same, etc. Driving me nuts! I just want Alabama! The error given is "Value not available".


Solution

  • The usual solution is to apply =MATCH to find the row number in the array:

    =MATCH(D1,B:B,0)  
    

    will search for the value in D1 in ColumnB (the last 0 means exactly) and hopefully return 2 (the second row in the chosen array - ie the whole of ColumnB). This can then be fed into:

    =INDEX(A:A,MATCH(D1,B:B,0))  
    

    where it becomes the second row of ColumnA, ie Alabama

    Details here =MATCH =INDEX and also http://www.excelhero.com/blog/2011/03/the-imposing-index.html