An Easy Way to Understand VLOOKUP in Microsoft Excel 2010

So here’s another function that we’re simplifying for your benefit. VLOOKUP is a monstrous function in Microsoft Excel 2010. It checks for specific values vertically in a given range. This is a powerful feature in Microsoft Excel 2010 that one needs to understand about. Let us see how this function works. As usual, we’ve tried to simplify is as much as possible for you to understand it easier and to put it to work.

Syntax

The first thing that you need to know about any function in Microsoft Excel 2010 is the syntax. Without the proper syntax, a function would not work at all. This is the syntax for VLOOKUP function:

=VLOOKUP(lookup_value,table_array,col_index_number,Range_lookup)

Now let us understand this syntax. ‘lookup_value’ is for the value that you need the function to search for or identify in the selected range. ‘table_array’ is the range of the table where the value is present. ‘col_index_number’ is for the column number where you search for the ‘lookup_value’. And ‘Range_lookup’ is used to determine if you need an exact match or an appropriate match for the searched value.

Let’s see how this actually works with a small example. Let us imagine that you have details of employees and the sales they have done. Along with the sales you also have the details of the profit they made. Now, this function can search for the name of the employee and return the values of either the sales they have done or the profits they have earned.

In this above table we have the details of employees with their sales and profit details. Now let’s see how we can pull out the details of Colbie with VLOOKUP.

Once you write in this formula, the function will look for “Colbie” in the table and give us the value in the third column in the table which is profit/loss.

And this is how VLOOKUP works. It searches for a specific value in a table and returns the corresponding value related to the values that are searched for. Isn’t that simple to understand? Now, you can start using this function whenever you can. And the more you use it, the easier it becomes for you. This function was used in simple situation to help you understand it. This can be used for complex data too.