PURPOSE

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.

Definitions

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

KEY POINTS

TO REMEMBER

Decide what column you are going to use for your

primary key

Identify your source table

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

Copy the column titles for your source table from the source spreadsheet to the destination spreadsheet.

Using VLOOKUP

Click on the first cell of the first column in your destination spreadsheet where you would like to insert data from your source spreadsheet.

From the Formulas tab, under Lookup & Reference, choose VLOOKUP

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

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.

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, you’ll put in 3.

(column B is 1, C is 2, D is 3).

For Range_lookup, enter “FALSE” to indicate that only exact matches for the primary key should be returned. Click OK.

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

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.