Excel VLOOKUP Function

VLOOKUP is designed to retrieve data in a table organized into vertical rows, where each row represents a new record. The "V" in VLOOKUP stands for vertical and “H” in HLOOKUP stands for horizontal.

Purpose

Lookup a value in a table by matching on the first column

Return value

The matched value from a table.

Syntax

=VLOOKUP (value, table, col_index, [range_lookup])

Arguments

value - The value to look for in the first column of a table.

table - The table from which to retrieve a value.

col_index - The column in the table from which to retrieve a value.

range_lookup - [optional] TRUE = approximate match (default). FALSE = exact match.

Let's learn this function with below example.

We need unique values for VLOOKUP function. As in the below example there is unique values are employee id’s.

We have other sheet where we want department data related to employee id.

Function we used above is as shown below.

=Vlookup(B2,Sheet1!B1:C6,2,0)

In the function 2 means we have taken values from 2^nd columns as shown below.

We have taken selection from unique cell value that is B columns and we take the value from 2^nd column that’s why we have taken 2^nd column in the VLOOKUP function.