When you need to find information in a large spreadsheet, or you are always looking for the same kind of information, use the VLOOKUP function. VLOOKUP works a lot like a phone book, where you start with the piece of data you know, like someone's name, in order to find out what you don't know, like their phone number.
The Syntax of the VLOOKUP Function
The function accepts four arguments: lookup_value, table_array, col_index_num, and range_lookup.
VLOOKUP function is best suited for situations when you are looking for a matching data point in a column, and when the matching data point is found, you go to the right in that row and fetch a value from a cell which is a specified number of columns to the right.
As already mentioned, VLOOKUP cannot look at its left. So, unless your lookup values are is the leftmost column, there's no chance that a Vlookup formula will bring you the result you want. The INDEX MATCH function in Excel is more versatile and does not really care where the lookup and return columns are located.
It can not lookup and return a value which is to the left of the lookup value. It works only with data which is arranged vertically. VLOOKUP would give a wrong result if you add/delete a new column in your data (as the column number value now refers to the wrong column).
VLOOKUP is a powerful function to perform lookup in Excel. It performs a row-wise lookup until a match is found. The IF function performs a logical test and returns one value for a TRUE result, and another for a FALSE result.
FALSE gives us the exact match, whereas TRUE gives us the approximate match for the value if not in the lookup range. Vlookup True is used when we don't get an exact match, but with the help of TRUE, we can get an approximate match or near value to the value which we are looking for.
The main difference between VLOOKUP and LOOKUP functions is the VLOOKUP is limited to vertical lookups only and the LOOKUP function has cross functionality which means that it can perform both vertical lookups and horizontal lookups.
The superior alternative to VLOOKUP is INDEX MATCH. While VLOOKUP works fine in most cases, it tends to reveal flaws when you start using it in large and complex sheets. The INDEX MATCH formula is actually two different functions; INDEX and MATCH.
XLOOKUP can look for values to the left and right of the lookup array, while VLOOKUP is limited to only looking for values to the right of the lookup value column. XLOOKUP allows you to customize text when a valid match is not found, while VLOOKUP only shows you an #N/A (error sign).
To make the VLOOKUP formula work correctly, the values have to match. If the problem is caused by text numbers in one place, and real numbers in another, do the following to fix the problem: convert the real number to text, so both values are text. or, convert the text value to a number, so both values are numbers.
Answer: Yes, VLOOKUP can handle alphanumeric data in Excel. It's a function that finds a specific value from a huge data table.
This parameter determines whether you are looking for an exact match or approximate match. In this example, the fourth parameter is FALSE. A parameter of FALSE means that VLOOKUP is looking for an EXACT match for the value of 10251. A parameter of TRUE means that a "close" match will be returned.
INDEX-MATCH in Two Formulas, Sorted Data
In other words, using the two-formula INDEX-MATCH approach against sorted data can be significantly faster than using either VLOOKUP or the one-formula INDEX-MATCH technique, and is best practice.
One constraint of VLOOKUP is that it can only look for values on the left-most column in the table array. If your lookup value is not in the first column of the array, you will see the #N/A error.
The VLOOKUP function with multiple criteria searches for the lookup_value in the first column of the given array/table. If you want to search the VLOOKUP function with multiple criteria, such as value1 from the first column and value2 from the second column, you need to add a column for the search.