result of formula in cell instead of formula itself...

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cfortran - 20 Mar 2008 21:05 GMT

I've got a spreadsheet where I need to search a table and return a
value from a particular column in that table. Vlookup appears to be
exactly what I'm looking for, however the first argument I need to
pass it (the value to search for) is located in cell N2. Cell N2 is
itself a formula and it appears that it is making vlookup fail. Is
there a way I can tell the vlookup function to only use the result of
the formula in that cell instead of following the formula itself?

Thanks

--cfortran

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cfortran - 20 Mar 2008 21:12 GMT

> I've got a spreadsheet where I need to search a table and return a
> value from a particular column in that table. Vlookup appears to be
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>
> --cfortran

I apologize for replying to my own post like this, but I think I may
have misunderstood the way vlookup works. Apparently it will only
search the left column of a specified table.

Here is my function: =vlookup(N2,A6:B6006,1,FALSE)

What I want it to do is search column B and return the result for that
row in column A.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

--cfortran

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Dave Peterson - 20 Mar 2008 21:55 GMT

You can use =index(match())

=index(a:a,match(n2,b:b,0))

Debra Dalgleish has lots of notes on =vlookup() and =index(match()) here:
http://www.contextures.com/xlFunctions02.html (for =vlookup())
and
http://www.contextures.com/xlFunctions03.html (for =index(match()))

> > I've got a spreadsheet where I need to search a table and return a
> > value from a particular column in that table. Vlookup appears to be
[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]
>
> --cfortran

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Dave Peterson

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Gord Dibben - 20 Mar 2008 22:16 GMT

=vlookup(N2,$A$6:$B$6006,2,FALSE)

N2 will hold a value that can be found in A6:A6006 and return the appropriate
value from B6:B6006

Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

>=vlookup(N2,A6:B6006,1,FALSE)

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