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- 1.
- 2.
- VLOOKUP is an Excel function that can pull data from one
worksheet to another, based on a primary key.
- Ex: given a spreadsheet of usage data and a spreadsheet of
pricing data, prices can be pulled into the usage spreadsheet using
the ISSN for each item.
- 3.
- Source spreadsheet: the spreadsheet from which you will pull
data. (in our example, the pricing data)
- Destination spreadsheet: the spreadsheet into which you are
adding data. (the usage data)
- Primary key: the column that uniquely identifies each row and
is present in both spreadsheets. (the ISSN)
- Source table: the subset of the spreadsheet that contains both
the primary key column and all columns from which you are pulling
information.
- 4.
- Decide what column you are going to use for your primary
key.
-
- A value that is included in both spreadsheets
-
- ISSNs or other numeric identifiers are good
-
- Titles or other long strings that can vary slightly are not as
good, because it can be hard to match them exactly.
- 5.
- Identify your source table
-
- A selection of your source spreadsheet
-
- Contains all the information you want to pull into the
destination spreadsheet
-
- Also contains primary key column
-
- It might be the entire source spreadsheet, or it might just be
a few columns.
- 6.
- Make sure that your primary key column is the left-most column
of your source table.
-
- This might involve moving some columns around.
Source Table Primary Key Column
- 7.
- Copy the column titles for your source table from the source
spreadsheet to the destination spreadsheet.
- 8.
- Click on the first cell of the first column in your destination
spreadsheet where you would like to insert data from your source
spreadsheet.
- 9.
- From the Formulas tab, under Lookup & Reference, choose
VLOOKUP
- 10.
- The Function Arguments window opens.
- Click on the first input box (lookup_value), then click the box
in your DESTINATION sheet that contains the PRIMARY KEY for that
row.
Primary Key
- 11.
- Click in the Table_array box, then switch to the source
worksheet and select the entire source table.
- You can now hand-edit the selection further if you need to in
the box.
- 12.
- In the col_index_num box, put the column number that you want
to pull data from in the source spreadsheet, not the letter.
- For example, if you want data from Column D, and your Primary
Key (first column of your source table) is in Column B, youll put
in 3. (column B is 1, C is 2, D is 3).
- 13.
- For Range_lookup, enter FALSE to indicate that only exact
matches for the primary key should be returned. Click OK.
- 14.
- Once the formula is entered once, you can use fill down to
finish the column, but first you need to fix some variables.
- Put a $ before the column (letter) label indicating lookup
value.
- Put a $ before the column (letter) AND row (number) labels
indicating source table
- 15.
- You can now use fill-down to pull in values for the rest of the
column
- To use the formula for other columns, copy and paste the first
row, changing only the col_index_num variable, then fill-down as
necessary.