vlookup mismatches/errors

[mike_s]

Hi,

I have data from 2 different sources in separate spreadsheets that I need to compare and return a value (address). I am comparing employee Id in Column A in spreadsheet 1 to employee id in column A in spreadsheet 2. The vlookup is not returning any matches on the employee id.

• I have changed the format of Column A to Text and Number and still no matches.
• When I manually retype the employee id's in each spreadsheet it finds a match.
• I have taken the retyped employee id's and copy/paste special- formats to copy the format of ones that matched with no luck.

I know this has to be something simple with the format because I can see matching values.

Thanks
Mike

 

[T. Valko]

Hi,

I have data from 2 different sources in separate spreadsheets that I need to compare and return a value (address). I am comparing employee Id in Column A in spreadsheet 1 to employee id in column A in spreadsheet 2. The vlookup is not returning any matches on the employee id.

• I have changed the format of Column A to Text and Number and still no matches.
• When I manually retype the employee id's in each spreadsheet it finds a match.
• I have taken the retyped employee id's and copy/paste special- formats to copy the format of ones that matched with no luck.

I know this has to be something simple with the format because I can see matching values.

Thanks
Mike

This link describes common data problems when doing lookups.

http://contextures.com/xlFunctions02.html#Trouble

 

[West Man]

Check for leading/trailing spaces in either the lookup value and/or the lookup table.

 

[mike_s]

Thanks, there were leading spaces. Thanks for the link it was helpful as well.