Converting a LARGE volume of numbers to text in Excel for VLOOKUP

  • Thread starter Thread starter JoFlo
  • Start date Start date
J

JoFlo

I have a VERY large table that I want to use in a VLOOKUP function. Th
first column of the table, if I understand correctly, needs to be i
text format. It is currently all in number format, causing my VLOOKU
function to not work properly. If I right click on the entire column
and format it into TEXT format, the numbers all align over to the left
appearing to have been converted to text. However, the VLOOKU
function still doesn't work. BUT....if I find the value in the tabl
manually, F2 it, and then hit ENTER, my VLOOKUP function then DOE
work.

It almost seems to be that it doesn't actually convert to text unless
do this step (F2, enter). The problem is, there's over 40000 rows i
this table, so I can't possibly do this to every cell in that firs
column. Is there a macro (I'm macro-challenged) or some other way tha
I can do this quickly and easily
 
First, Your data doesn't have to be text. It's just that often your search
argument is sometimes text and sometimes numbers, that make the results
looking inconsistent.
So the easiest thing is to make sure your search argument is a number (if
you're sure your table is all numbers). You can use the VALUE() function for
that.
If for some reason you insist on making your table text, introduce a
(temporary) extra column, use the TEXT() function to convert to text, copy
and replace the original with the results using Paste Special>Values

--

Kind Regards,

Niek Otten

Microsoft MVP - Excel
 
It might be possible to avoid even needing a macro: have
you tried adding another column to the left and using the
TEXT function to force the value to be seen as text; in
other words something like:

A1 = TEXT(B1,"#######")
etc...

Don't know if this would work but could be an easy fix.
 
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