How on earth do I look up my value and return its counterpart?! (Vlookup)
We can do this in excel with a single formula:
- VLOOKUP: find a given value and return my target value
Syntax
=VLOOKUP(look_up_this_value, in_this_table, column_to_return) Example
Let’s use an example to illustrate the formula. We want to us our number 3 to find which Pet this corresponds to (Fish)(the black cells).
The Steps – Vlookup
look_up_this_value: 3 (lookup_value)
=VLOOKUP(3
in_this_table : The range that contains our data = Column B to D (table_array)
=VLOOKUP(3, columns B to D
column_to_return : we want the Pet from the Pet column = column 3 (col_index_num)
=VLOOKUP(3, columns B to D, column number 3)
Result
formula
=VLOOKUP(F3,B3:D7,3)output
And there you have it, the Pet with the Number 3 is Fish!
