VLOOKUP - reasons for not working

  • Thread starter Thread starter Simon
  • Start date Start date
S

Simon

What are the reasons for VLOOKUP not to work. I have used
this function many times before, this time it does not
seem to work and produces the result - #N/A.

I have a hand written list and one that I have exported
from Access. I have formatted the columns to text,
because I thought that might be the reason.

If any can help me with other reasons why VLOOKUP does
not work, they are welcomed.

Thank you.
 
Almost certainly because the dat you are looking up is either a different format, or theer is
garbage in there that you are not seeing.

John
John

The two names above are not the same as the second has two trailing spaces.

1234
1234

You might also have other garbage characters in there from the copy and paste.

The two 'numbers' above may in fact be a number and a piece of text.

If indeed the data is all meant to be numeric, then the first thing i would do is to tun Dave
McRitchie's Trimall macro against your data to ensure that any garbage characters are cleaned
out:-

http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/join.htm#trimall

Then copy an empty cell, select your data and do edit / paste special / add. This will coerce the
data back to numeric. Now make sure that the data you are looking up is a numeric value.
 
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