VLOOKUP( value to look up, where to look up, list’s results column, approximate or exact match)
VOOKUP needs four pieces of information - referred to as its arguments - in order to do its business: “Weetabix” - or best-fits, as with Poppi’s 67%. One thing these two lists, and any other list you want to use, must have in common is that their left-most columns are the ones that contain the values amongst which VOOKUP is to seek a match.Ī facet of VLOOKUP itself is that it can look for exact matches - e.g. In this example you want VLOOKUP to find a best-fit, rather than an exact match, between mark and grade. So, if Poppi scores 67% in her science paper you want VLOOKUP to register that as a “C” grade. So, when you enter a breakfast including Weetabix into your spreadsheet you want it to pick up on the fact you’ve laid in 143 calories for each 100 g of breakfast cereal you’ve eaten.Īnother example: you are recording test scores and need each one represented as a grade. As you input Weetabix as part of a breakfast, you want the spreadsheet to look up automatically the calorific value of Weetabix in this, your reference list of nutritional values:
VOOKUP saves you the chore of manually copy and pasting from the list or of typing values afresh.įor example, you’re maintaining a Daily Food Consumption spreadsheet. You have a list from which you need to pick information relating to a particular entry in that list.
#How to use vlookup in excel in a gradebook how to
How to use Excel’s VLOOKUP to take a text or numeric item and retrieve information relating to it that is stored in a list or table. (e) How to Use the VLOOKUP Function in an Excel Formula