VLOOKUP misery

[dbwiz]

Arggh! I have a list of codes in Col A (some of which are totally numeric, others start with letters) and descriptions in Col B. I am trying to synch up the codes in multiple columns on other large spreadsheets to pull in the descriptions, and it is not being very cooperative.

I made sure that all were formatted general, and it will pull in the numeric ones but not the ones starting with letters. I have tried reformatting to text, etc, and no avail.

I know I am missing something really simple. Can I not format everything the same, or am I going to have to sort by code for each spreadsheet and column, separate them by starting with numeric vs starting with a letter, and stand on one foot while praying to the almighty Excel wizard that it works? Sigh.

 

[VoG]

This may help http://www.contextures.com/xlFunctions02.html#trouble

 

[BROWN_RY]

do you mean the codes start with letters or the descriptions start with letters. The difference between numeric and letters shouldnt matter if its in the description. but all i can think of is that you need to lock your range with f4, and make sure it says '0' for the match type. general formatting has always worked for me when pulling in lettered descriptions and i use vlookup on a daily basis. let me know if either of those two tips were helpful.

 

[BROWN_RY]

=vlookup(a1,$b$1:$c:$40,2,0)

 

[dbwiz]

I figured it out. It was none of the above. Turned out there was some extra spaces in the code. I did a TRIM on them copy/pasted special values and then the vlookup worked just fine.