Jun 28, 2011

Using VLOOKUP in Excel

This is a short description on how to use "vlookup" function in Excel.

Vlookup function is one of the the most powerful Excel tips that I learn. It works like a database tables, where it can retrieve information from another database table by supplying it an unique identifier. For instance, you can use vlookup function to retrieve the product description (from another sheet) by supplying it the product code.

From the menu Formulas, Insert functions, search the function called vlookup. You need to supply 3 mandatory parameters and 1 optional parameter:

  • Lookup_value: [ the unique key]
  • Table_array: [ the table range ]
  • Col_index_num: [ the column of the retrieved information in the table range]
  • Range_lookup (optional): [ sorted or unsorted 1st column in the table range ]