Vlookup based on contents of a cell

[geordie_ben]

I've gotten a list of post codes and their counties.

This is how the data is presented:

Postcode area	Postcode districts	Post town	Former postal county
AB	AB10, AB11, AB12, AB15, AB16, AB21, AB22, AB23, AB24, AB25, AB99non-geo	Aberdeen	<small style="font-size: 11.9px;">(Aberdeenshire)</small>

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I need to do some type of lookup (I think), where the first part of a full post code being AB22 would show Aberdeenshire

Is there a type of formula I could use to do this?

 

[FormR]

Hi, you could extract the postcode area from a full postcode with a formula like this:

<b>Excel 2013/2016</b><table cellpadding="2.5px" rules="all" style=";background-color: rgb(255,255,255);border: 1px solid;border-collapse: collapse; border-color: rgb(187,187,187)"><colgroup><col width="25px" style="background-color: rgb(218,231,245)" /><col /><col /></colgroup><thead><tr style=" background-color: rgb(218,231,245);text-align: center;color: rgb(22,17,32)"><th></th><th>A</th><th>B</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr ><td style="color: rgb(22,17,32);text-align: center;">1</td><td style=";">Full postcode</td><td style=";">Postcode area</td></tr><tr ><td style="color: rgb(22,17,32);text-align: center;">2</td><td style=";">AB22 0AA</td><td style="background-color: #FFFF00;;">AB</td></tr></tbody></table><p style="width:4.8em;font-weight:bold;margin:0;padding:0.2em 0.6em 0.2em 0.5em;border: 1px solid rgb(187,187,187);border-top:none;text-align: center;background-color: rgb(218,231,245);color: rgb(22,17,32)">Sheet1</p><br /><br /><table width="85%" cellpadding="2.5px" rules="all" style=";border: 2px solid black;border-collapse:collapse;padding: 0.4em;background-color: rgb(255,255,255)" ><tr><td style="padding:6px" ><b>Worksheet Formulas</b><table cellpadding="2.5px" width="100%" rules="all" style="border: 1px solid;text-align:center;background-color: rgb(255,255,255);border-collapse: collapse; border-color: rgb(187,187,187)"><thead><tr style=" background-color: rgb(218,231,245);color: rgb(22,17,32)"><th width="10px">Cell</th><th style="text-align:left;padding-left:5px;">Formula</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th width="10px" style=" background-color: rgb(218,231,245);color: rgb(22,17,32)">B2</th><td style="text-align:left">=LEFT(<font color="Blue">A2,AGGREGATE(<font color="Red">15,6,FIND(<font color="Green">{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9},A2</font>),1</font>)-1</font>)</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></table><br />

You could then do a standard VLOOKUP() to the get post town or county.

 

[geordie_ben]

Hi

Thanks for the super quick reply

The above was a snippet of every post code in the UK

Would you formula still work?

I can't do the lookup on "AB" in the above example as some Postcode Areas have more than County inside them

 

[FormR]

The above was a snippet of every post code in the UK

Hi, a slightly bigger snippet, along with a few examples of the inputs and expected results be helpful. But pending that - here's another stab.

<b>Excel 2013/2016</b><table cellpadding="2.5px" rules="all" style=";background-color: rgb(255,255,255);border: 1px solid;border-collapse: collapse; border-color: rgb(187,187,187)"><colgroup><col width="25px" style="background-color: rgb(218,231,245)" /><col /><col /><col /><col /><col /><col /><col /></colgroup><thead><tr style=" background-color: rgb(218,231,245);text-align: center;color: rgb(22,17,32)"><th></th><th>A</th><th>B</th><th>C</th><th>D</th><th>E</th><th>F</th><th>G</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr ><td style="color: rgb(22,17,32);text-align: center;">1</td><td style=";">Postcode area</td><td style=";">Postcode districts</td><td style=";">Post town</td><td style=";">Former postal county</td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style=";">Full postcode</td><td style=";">town</td></tr><tr ><td style="color: rgb(22,17,32);text-align: center;">2</td><td style=";">AB</td><td style=";">AB10, AB11, AB12, AB15, AB16, AB21, AB22, AB23, AB24, AB25, AB99non-geo</td><td style=";">Aberdeen</td><td style=";">(Aberdeenshire)</td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style=";">AB22 0AA</td><td style="background-color: #FFFF00;;">Aberdeen</td></tr></tbody></table><p style="width:4.8em;font-weight:bold;margin:0;padding:0.2em 0.6em 0.2em 0.5em;border: 1px solid rgb(187,187,187);border-top:none;text-align: center;background-color: rgb(218,231,245);color: rgb(22,17,32)">Sheet1</p><br /><br /><table width="85%" cellpadding="2.5px" rules="all" style=";border: 2px solid black;border-collapse:collapse;padding: 0.4em;background-color: rgb(255,255,255)" ><tr><td style="padding:6px" ><b>Worksheet Formulas</b><table cellpadding="2.5px" width="100%" rules="all" style="border: 1px solid;text-align:center;background-color: rgb(255,255,255);border-collapse: collapse; border-color: rgb(187,187,187)"><thead><tr style=" background-color: rgb(218,231,245);color: rgb(22,17,32)"><th width="10px">Cell</th><th style="text-align:left;padding-left:5px;">Formula</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th width="10px" style=" background-color: rgb(218,231,245);color: rgb(22,17,32)">G2</th><td style="text-align:left">=VLOOKUP(<font color="Blue">"*"&LEFT(<font color="Red">F2,FIND(<font color="Green">" ",F2&" "</font>)-1</font>)&"*",B:C,2,0</font>)</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></table><br />

 

[geordie_ben]

Hi

The list of information is from here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_postcode_districts_in_the_United_Kingdom

This is a decent snippet:

B	B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, B8, B9, B10, B11, B12, B13, B14, B15, B16, B17, B18, B19, B20, B21, B23, B24, B25, B26, B27, B28, B29, B30, B31, B32, B33, B34, B35, B36, B37, B38, B40, B42, B43, B44, B45, B46, B47, B48, B99non-geo	Birmingham	<small style="font-size: 11.9px;">(West Midlands)</small>
B	B49, B50	Alcester	Warwickshire
B	B60, B61	Bromsgrove	Worcestershire
B	B62, B63	Halesowen	West Midlands
B	B64	Cradley Heath	West Midlands
B	B65	Rowley Regis	West Midlands
B	B66, B67	Smethwick	West Midlands
B	B68, B69	OLDBURY	West Midlands
B	B70, B71	West Bromwich	West Midlands
B	B72, B73, B74, B75, B76	Sutton Coldfield	West Midlands
B	B77, B78, B79	TAMWORTH	Staffordshire
B	B80	STUDLEY	Warwickshire
B	B90, B91, B92, B93, B94	Solihull	West Midlands

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I have a list of customer post codes, and I need to establish which County they're in, which is Column D in the above example

Example:

Postcode is B75 1AZ

I've done a text to columns, delimited on space to get the first part of the Post Code (I've manually checked them and they're all good - phew!)

The formula would then bring back the County as West Midlands

Hopefully this helps

 

[FormR]

I've done a text to columns, delimited on space to get the first part of the Post Code

Hi, you can try this:

<b>Excel 2013/2016</b><table cellpadding="2.5px" rules="all" style=";background-color: rgb(255,255,255);border: 1px solid;border-collapse: collapse; border-color: rgb(187,187,187)"><colgroup><col width="25px" style="background-color: rgb(218,231,245)" /><col /><col /><col /><col /><col /><col /><col /></colgroup><thead><tr style=" background-color: rgb(218,231,245);text-align: center;color: rgb(22,17,32)"><th></th><th>A</th><th>B</th><th>C</th><th>D</th><th>E</th><th>F</th><th>G</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr ><td style="color: rgb(22,17,32);text-align: center;">1</td><td style=";">B</td><td style=";">B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, B8, B9, B10, B11, B12, B13, B14, B15, B16, B17, B18, B19, B20, B21, B23, B24, B25, B26, B27, B28, B29, B30, B31, B32, B33, B34, B35, B36, B37, B38, B40, B42, B43, B44, B45, B46, B47, B48,B99non-geo</td><td style=";">Birmingham</td><td style=";">(West Midlands)</td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td></tr><tr ><td style="color: rgb(22,17,32);text-align: center;">2</td><td style=";">B</td><td style=";">B49, B50</td><td style=";">Alcester</td><td style=";">Warwickshire</td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style=";">B75</td><td style="background-color: #FFFF00;;">West Midlands</td></tr><tr ><td style="color: rgb(22,17,32);text-align: center;">3</td><td style=";">B</td><td style=";">B60, B61</td><td style=";">Bromsgrove</td><td style=";">Worcestershire</td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td></tr><tr ><td style="color: rgb(22,17,32);text-align: center;">4</td><td style=";">B</td><td style=";">B62, B63</td><td style=";">Halesowen</td><td style=";">West Midlands</td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td></tr><tr ><td style="color: rgb(22,17,32);text-align: center;">5</td><td style=";">B</td><td style=";">B64</td><td style=";">Cradley Heath</td><td style=";">West Midlands</td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td></tr><tr ><td style="color: rgb(22,17,32);text-align: center;">6</td><td style=";">B</td><td style=";">B65</td><td style=";">Rowley Regis</td><td style=";">West Midlands</td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td></tr><tr ><td style="color: rgb(22,17,32);text-align: center;">7</td><td style=";">B</td><td style=";">B66, B67</td><td style=";">Smethwick</td><td style=";">West Midlands</td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td></tr><tr ><td style="color: rgb(22,17,32);text-align: center;">8</td><td style=";">B</td><td style=";">B68, B69</td><td style=";">OLDBURY</td><td style=";">West Midlands</td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td></tr><tr ><td style="color: rgb(22,17,32);text-align: center;">9</td><td style=";">B</td><td style=";">B70, B71</td><td style=";">West Bromwich</td><td style=";">West Midlands</td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td></tr><tr ><td style="color: rgb(22,17,32);text-align: center;">10</td><td style=";">B</td><td style=";">B72, B73, B74, B75, B76</td><td style=";">Sutton Coldfield</td><td style=";">West Midlands</td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td></tr><tr ><td style="color: rgb(22,17,32);text-align: center;">11</td><td style=";">B</td><td style=";">B77, B78, B79</td><td style=";">TAMWORTH</td><td style=";">Staffordshire</td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td></tr><tr ><td style="color: rgb(22,17,32);text-align: center;">12</td><td style=";">B</td><td style=";">B80</td><td style=";">STUDLEY</td><td style=";">Warwickshire</td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td></tr><tr ><td style="color: rgb(22,17,32);text-align: center;">13</td><td style=";">B</td><td style=";">B90, B91, B92, B93, B94</td><td style=";">Solihull</td><td style=";">West Midlands</td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td><td style="text-align: right;;"></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="width:4.8em;font-weight:bold;margin:0;padding:0.2em 0.6em 0.2em 0.5em;border: 1px solid rgb(187,187,187);border-top:none;text-align: center;background-color: rgb(218,231,245);color: rgb(22,17,32)">Sheet1</p><br /><br /><table width="85%" cellpadding="2.5px" rules="all" style=";border: 2px solid black;border-collapse:collapse;padding: 0.4em;background-color: rgb(255,255,255)" ><tr><td style="padding:6px" ><b>Worksheet Formulas</b><table cellpadding="2.5px" width="100%" rules="all" style="border: 1px solid;text-align:center;background-color: rgb(255,255,255);border-collapse: collapse; border-color: rgb(187,187,187)"><thead><tr style=" background-color: rgb(218,231,245);color: rgb(22,17,32)"><th width="10px">Cell</th><th style="text-align:left;padding-left:5px;">Formula</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th width="10px" style=" background-color: rgb(218,231,245);color: rgb(22,17,32)">G2</th><td style="text-align:left">=LOOKUP(<font color="Blue">2,1/(<font color="Red">ISNUMBER(<font color="Green">SEARCH(<font color="Purple">F2&",",$B$1:$B$999&","</font>)</font>)</font>),$D$1:$D$999</font>)</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></table><br />

 

[geordie_ben]

That's worked perfectly, thanks!!

Out of interest, why did you change the formula?

 

[FormR]

Out of interest, why did you change the formula?

Hi, I realised that the VLOOKUP() with the wildcards is not robust. It would match B2 with B22 if B22 happened to occur in a row before B2 for example.

 

[geordie_ben]

Ah, gotcha

I think luckily they're all in alphabetical order.

Thanks for your help