In previous blogs, I’ve talked about Excel’s VLOOKUP function. In one, I covered the purpose of VLOOKUP, and in the other, I explained the difference between VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP. Today, let’s take a look at the arguments of the VLOOKUP function. I’ve never been happy with the way Microsoft explains them in the Insert Function dialog box – I find their terminology confusing. In this blog, I’m going to try to clarify these arguments for you. Let me start by showing you what the

In my last post, I talked about why you might use the VLOOKUP feature. If you missed it, you can find it here. Today, I’m going to discuss the difference between VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP. The two features are nearly identical. The difference between the two is in the orientation of your lookup data. Let me explain. VLOOKUP stands for Vertical look-up. It works great when your look-up data is oriented vertically. Take a look at this example: Notice that the names go down column A,

VLOOKUP is one of the coolest features of Microsoft Excel, and also one of the least understood. Lots of people are interested in it and have great cases for using it. But I get many people who tell me that they don't use it because they don't really understand how it works. Is it magic? YES! Well, sort of. OK, no. But still, it's one of the coolest features of Excel, and well worth understanding. In a nutshell, VLOOKUP is a database feature. Now, mind you, I don't recommend