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How to use vlookup in excel between two sheets

February 13, 2023
6.6K Views

Using Excel's VLOOKUP function, you can extract the data or information that corresponds to a particular piece of information by searching it up in a table or data set. In plain English, Excel is instructed by the VLOOKUP function to look for this piece of information (for example, bananas) in this data collection (a table) and give me some corresponding information about it (for example, the price of bananas).

How to use vlookup in excel online, 2016 and 2019:

Organize data.Making sure your data is well-organized and suitable for using the VLOOKUP function is the first step to using it properly.You must make sure that the data you want to look up is to the left of the related data you want to extract because VLOOKUP operates from left to right.For instance:

Since Bananas are listed in the leftmost column in the aforementioned VLOOKUP example, the good table may quickly run the function to search up Bananas and return their price. You can see that there is an error message in the bad table example because the columns are not in the correct order.Give the function a lookup command.We instruct Excel on what to look for in this stage. After selecting the cell that contains the data we want to look up, we begin by typing the formula =VLOOKUP(. It is the cell that says Bananas in this instance.

Inform the function of the search area.In this step, we choose the table containing the data and instruct Excel to look for the data we chose in the previous stage in the leftmost column.For instance, from column A to column C, the entire table is highlighted in this instance. Excel will check column A for the data we instructed it to look for.

Let Excel know which column to pull data from.In this step, we'll tell Excel which column holds the information we want the VLOOKUP to output. Excel needs a number that corresponds to the table's column number in order to perform this.We enter the number 3 in the formula because the output data in our case is in the third column of the table.

Exact or about similar.In the formula, enter True or False to inform Excel if you're looking for an exact match or a close one.Since we want an exact match (Bananas) in our VLOOKUP example, we enter FALSE in the formula. Instead of TRUE, we may utilize it as a parameter to get a close match.When looking up a specific number that might not be present in the table, such as the number 2.9585, an approximation would be helpful. Excel will in this instance search for the closest number to 2.9585, even if that particular number is not there in the data set. By doing this, errors in the VLOOKUP formula will be reduced.VLOOKUP in financial research and modelling in excel:In financial modelling and other forms of financial analysis, VLOOKUP formulas are frequently used to give models more life and incorporate many situations.Imagine, for instance, if the corporation had three distinct interest rate scenarios: 3.0 percent, 4.0 percent, and 5.0 percent. This financial model would also include a debt schedule. When a low, medium, or high scenario is found, a VLOOKUP might output the matching interest rate into the financial model.

An analyst can choose the scenario they want and have the corresponding interest rate flow into the model from the VLOOKUP formula, as you can see in the example above.Note: This above written article is an attempt to show you how to use vlookup in excel online, 2016 and 2019, in both windows and mac.You just need to have a little understanding of how and which way things work and you are good to go. With having this basic knowledge or information of how to use it, you can also access and use different other options on excel or spreadsheet. Also, it is very similar to Word or Document. So, in a way, if you learn one thing, like Excel, you can automatically learn how to use Word as well because both of them are very similar in so many ways. If you want to know more about WPS Office, you can download WPS Office to access, Word, Excel, PowerPoint for free.                                  

15 years of office industry experience, tech lover and copywriter. Follow me for product reviews, comparisons, and recommendations for new apps and software.