VLOOKUP Function - Excel
Overview
The VLOOKUP function in Excel stands for “Vertical Lookup” and it is a useful tool to search for a specific value in the first column of a range (table or array) and then return a corresponding value from a specified column within that range.
Example:
=VLOOKUP(F2, C1:D5, 2, FALSE)
Syntax:
=VLOOKUP(lookup_value, table_array, col_index_num, [range_lookup])
lookup_value: The value to search for in the first column of the table.
table_array: The range of cells that contains the data. It should include the column with the lookup_value and the columns containing the data to be searched.
col_index_num: The column number in the table_array from which to retrieve the value.
[range_lookup]: An optional argument. If TRUE or omitted, VLOOKUP will find an approximate match. If FALSE, it will find an exact match.
Example
In the example above, the VLOOKUP function is used to find the value of the “West” code from the table in C1:D5. The first input is “West” which is the value we want to look for in the table. The second input is C1:D5, which is the table we want to search for “West” in. The third input is 2 because we want to return the value in the 2nd column of the table. The fourth and final input is “FALSE” because we want the lookup value to be an exact match before returning anything. The final output is 4 which is next to the “West” value.