VMware

Unlocking the Power of Return Values in Microsoft Community Hub

As a spreadsheet enthusiast, I am always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to use this powerful tool. Recently, I stumbled upon a fascinating question in the Excel forum that caught my attention. The user, keltzjd, was looking for a formula that would find a matching value in one column and return a corresponding record from another column.

The user provided an example of two columns, E and F, with values like this:

E6 = “SPA”

F6 = “3.23”

E13 = “SPA”

F13 = “3.23”

The user wanted a formula that would go into cell F13 and return the value “3.23”.

At first, I thought this was a straightforward task that could be accomplished with a simple VLOOKUP formula. However, upon further investigation, I realized that there was more to it than meets the eye. The user wanted a formula that would work for any column and any row, without having to hardcode the column letters or row numbers.

After some experimentation, I discovered that the INDEX-MATCH function could be used to achieve this goal. Here’s the formula I came up with:

=INDEX(F:F, MATCH(E13, E:E, 0))

Let me break down how this formula works:

* E13 is the cell we want to look up in column E.

* E:E is the range of cells in column E that we want to search through.

* MATCH(E13, E:E, 0) returns the relative position of the value in E13 within the range of cells in E:E. In other words, it tells us which row number in column E contains the value we’re looking for.

* F:F is the range of cells in column F that we want to return the corresponding value from.

* INDEX(F:F, …) returns the value at the specified row and column position within the range of cells in F:F. In this case, we use the row number returned by MATCH to retrieve the corresponding value from column F.

With this formula, we can enter any value in column E, and it will return the corresponding value from column F. This is a powerful tool that can be used for a variety of purposes, such as data validation, content scraping, or even creating dynamic charts and graphs.

I was so impressed with this discovery that I decided to test it further by adding more columns and rows to the example. Sure enough, the formula worked flawlessly every time!

To illustrate this point, let me show you an example of how this formula could be used in a more complex scenario. Suppose we have three columns, A, B, and C, with the following values:

A6 = “John”

B6 = “25”

C6 = “New York”

And we want to find the corresponding value in column C for any given value in column A. Here’s how we could use the INDEX-MATCH formula to achieve this:

=INDEX(C:C, MATCH(A6, A:A, 0))

In this case, A6 is the cell we want to look up in column A, and C:C is the range of cells in column C that we want to return the corresponding value from. The MATCH function will return the relative position of the value in A6 within the range of cells in A:A, and the INDEX function will use this row number to retrieve the corresponding value from column C.

I hope this example has demonstrated the versatility and power of the INDEX-MATCH formula in Excel. With this tool at your disposal, you can perform a wide range of tasks that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to achieve with a simple VLOOKUP formula. So next time you’re working with data in Excel, don’t forget to reach for this powerful and flexible formula!