The Excel question of May/June 2010

paper 3
WE are going to look at question number 44. The Vlookup function.

A lookup function finds the meaning of a particular value by looking it up in a lookup table.

So, we have a table in JXSHEET.CSV containing certain codes and we want to use a look up function
to find the meanings of those codes.

This is a lookup table. It

contains the code and
This is the destination it stands
our table for. E.g EGY stands for
Egypt.

These are
our codes

Supposing we want to know the destination for Code COZ. We use the lookup function so the
computer looks up the code COZ in the lookup table. When it finds the code it looks at the
destination(Cozumel) and enters it into cell A3.

The look up value is in JXDEST.CSV so we need to open JXDEST.CSV.

Once you have opened JXDEST.csv follow the following procedures:

 Right click on JXsheet and then click on Move or copy.

Under the To BOOK: choose JXDEXT.csv. Then click ok . You will now see
the two tables both appear at the
bottom of your excel sheet.

In jxsheet.csv Click on cell A2. Go to insert function. Choose the Vlookup function in the dialog box
which appears. Then click ok.

You will see this box appear:

This is the location of the

This is the table where the codes and
code you are the destinations are located.
looking for. In this case JXDEST.csv
In this case:

BAH This is the column which

contains the destinations. In
this case the second column
contains the destinations.
So click in the box lookup value and click on cell B2.

Click in the box table array and then click on JXDEST.csv and highlight the table. Do not highlight the
table headings.

In col_index_num box type in 2 as the destinations are in the second column of the table.

Click ok.

We want to replicate this formula to other cells but we have to ensure the table location stays the
same, so we have to make it an absolute reference. To do so highlight the portion A2:B11 and then
click on the F4 button on your keyboard.

The dollar sign indicates the reference is now locked. You can now
replicate the function to the other cells.