But if you only do that once a year, you’ll probably have to research how to use the VLOOKUP function in Excel. For the third most used function in Excel (after SUM and AVERAGE), VLOOKUP is complex.

Don’t worry, though — this function isn’t nearly as intimidating as it looks, and it can save a lot of time and allow for more freestyle analysis. Here's how to use VLOOKUP in Excel.

When you use VLOOKUP in Excel, you might encounter several common issues that can prevent the function from returning the correct results. Here are some steps you can take to troubleshoot and ...

In the Function Arguments dialog box, type the cell you want to change in the Lookup_ Value text box. In the Table_ Array text box, we type B8:D9; because this is the Range of cells we are looking at.

We’ll combine a combo box and the VLOOKUP () function. Looking at the actual data, you might expect B to return Beverages because that value occurs before Baked Goods & Mixes in the category column.

How to Use VLookup With Different Sheets on Excel. Excel's VLOOKUP function searches an array of cells for data you choose, returning data from the cell next to the one that it finds. For example ...

Excel's VLOOKUP function searches cell arrays for data that you provide. The function often takes cell references as input, letting you easily apply the function to each cell in a range.

Vlookup used to create an array in memory that held the full range of the table. So the smaller you can make the array, the less memory the function will use.