#How to use vlookup in excel 2016 how to#
#How to use vlookup in excel 2016 download#

You’re done! It’s time to hit the ENTER key and see the results. We don’t want to do any approximation, so we explicitly use FALSE as the fourth parameter: It can answer questions like which item has quantity equal to or closest to 100.

Therefore, this option is useful mostly if you’re searching for numerical values. The approximate search will attempt to find the closest value going from top to bottom.

the look up column) in the cell range is sorted either numerically or alphabetically. NOTE: If you specify TRUE, then the function will assume that the first column (i.e. If you do not specify anything as fourth parameter, the default value will be TRUE. This fourth parameter is optional and it can either be TRUE or FALSE. In the end, we tell the VLOOKUP function that we want precise result and that the function should not do any approximation. Therefore, in this context, column A is not always number 1. For example, if range is B2:E14, then column B becomes column 1.

NOTE: Column index must be counted only for the columns in range. It is intuitive column A has index 1, column B has index 2… and so on: We want to know the unit price and the column index of the unit price is 3. In third parameter, we need to tell the function about the column index in which the result is located. So far so good! isn’t it? Now we inform the function about what we want as result. We will search the entire data in our example, therefore the cell range would be A3:E14 In second parameter, we need to tell VLOOKUP about the cell range in which we want to make this search. If the look up value is in column B, then you have to start cell range from column B (something like B3:E14). For example, if you want to search in the range A3:E14, then the look up value must be in column A. What it actually means is that VLOOKUP will search for the given value only in the first column of the range. NOTE: The value that you want to look up must exist in the first column of the cell range that you will specify in the second parameter. Now because we want to base our search on Item ID IN0007, so we type this value as first parameter:

Whether to look for approximate results or not (optional).

Column index of the result that we are seeking (required).

Cell range where the search is to be conducted (required).

Now, to begin the formula, type equal to sign ( = ) in the cell and then type VLOOKUP and begin the brackets for writing the parameters: For example, we put the cursor in cell F5. First place your cursor in a cell where you want the result to appear. So, we begin in the same way as we write all other formulas in Excel. We know that VLOOKUP is an Excel function. Now let’s see how VLOOKUP works and how it can answer the above question. But what if the spreadsheet contains thousands of rows? This function can help you in such situations. Looking at the above Excel sheet, it is easy to find the unit price of any item, so you may wonder why do you need a special function for this? Well, the above given sheet contains a small amount of data.

How would you do this? VLOOKUP can easily answer this question. Now let’s assume that you want to know the unit price of the item whose Item ID is IN0007. This sheet contains sample data of an inventory. We will use the following Excel sheet to demonstrate the functioning of VLOOKUP. Once the row is located, the function can retrieve other values in that row. The function will find the row where the specified value is present. Using VLOOKUP, you can tell Microsoft Excel (or other spreadsheet like Google Sheets) that you are looking for a specific value in a given column. This is why the column search function is called VLOOKUP or Vertical Lookup. VLOOKUP is an Excel function that searches for values in a specified column. We will use the same Excel sheet for the following tutorial.

#How to use vlookup in excel 2016 download#

If you want to do all of the following steps on your own, you can download VLOOKUP example Excel sheet. Just follow this tutorial and you will understand VLOOKUP within minutes.

#How to use vlookup in excel 2016 how to#

In this article, we will step-by-step tell you how to use VLOOKUP function. VLOOKUP is very useful and very easy to use. More importantly, many people think that VLOOKUP is a difficult function to use. Most of the Microsoft Excel users have heard of VLOOKUP but many of them do not know what is VLOOKUP.