So, I'll enter B3, a colon, and E52, then I'll type another comma.Īnd you need to do that because the functions won't work without the colons and commas. The part numbers start in cell B3, and if I scroll down, you can see the status values end at cell E52. I'll enter H2 as the first argument, because that is where I'll type the part numbers.įollow that with a comma, and then, I'll enter the range of cells that contains the data I want to search. These parentheses will contain a set of arguments, and an argument is just a piece of data that the function needs in order to run. To do that, I'll click the cell where I want to see the Prices, I'll enter an = sign, VLOOKUP, and parentheses. So, as an example, I'll enter part numbers, the thing I know, and find out Prices, the thing I don't know. VLOOKUP works a lot like a phone book, where you start with the piece of data you know, like someone's name, in order to find out what you don't know, like their phone number. When you need to find information in a large spreadsheet, or you are always looking for the same kind of information, use the VLOOKUP function.

How to create vlookup in excel 2016