Vlookups

Hi Alan, thank you for your question. Basically, VLOOKUP lets you search for specific information in your spreadsheet. For example, if you have a list of products with prices, you could search for the price of a specific item.

A B
1 Item 1 £10
2 Item 2 £15
3 Item 3 £5

If you want to find the price for Item 2, the vlookup will look like this (I am showing this in steps)

=VLOOKUP("Item 2", The item in the first column
you want to find
=VLOOKUP("Item 2",A1:B3, The location of the data set

=VLOOKUP("Item 2",A1:B3,2, The column from which you
want the result
=VLOOKUP("Item 2",A1:B3,2,FALSE)

FALSE will locate the search
item in the first column even
if that column is not sorted
ascending. If the first
column is sorted ascending,
you can use TRUE.

The result will be £15.

Obviously, you will use VLOOKUP on a much larger data set.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards
Marius Barnard
Excel Trainer