Referencing functions in a function?

Hello everyone. I have another weird one for you.

I have 6 columns of data. The first 5 columns have data that needs to be looked up and the 6th is the associated "answer." I need to use a vlookup function to find the "answer." In addition, I have a column with a number that is related to which one of the 5 columns vlookup needs to look in to find a match. The cells contain a 1 through 5, which correspond to columns 1 through 5 mentioned above.

So, I have two worksheets, say A and B. A contains the lookup function, the lookup value, and the number column. Worksheet B contains the 6 columns of data in columns A through F.

I need vlookup to look up a value and it needs to look in the column associated with the “number column.” For instance, if the number is two, I need the function to look in column B and if its 3, it needs to look in column C. I created a lookup function to associate 1 with A, 2 with B, etc, but I cannot get excel to accept the value of the lookup function as a value in the callout for the lookup array in the vlookup function.

I suppose I could do 5 lookup functions, array their values, and use the lookup function from there, but it seems inefficient to do it this way because of the 5 required vlookups rather than 1. I am dealing with 20,000 line items, so I don’t want to bog the computer down any more than I have to. Any ideas?

To best describe or illustrate your problem you would be better off attaching a dummy workbook, the workbook should contain the same structure and some dummy data of the same type as the type you have in your real workbook - so, if a cell contains numbers & letters in this format abc-123 then that should be reflected in the dummy workbook.

If needed supply a before and after sheet in the workbook so the person helping you can see what you are trying to achieve.

Doing this will ensure you get the result you need!

Arthur,

I have created an attached a sample less data. You'll notice that the lookup function in column D in Sheet one is:

=VLOOKUP(A2,Data!A1:D6,5-Sheet1!B2,FALSE)

I need to replace the "A" in the "A1:D6" array with the value in column C in Sheet 1 (I called it "Column Reference"

If that worked, the vlookup equations would be:
=VLOOKUP(A2,Data!A1:D6,4,FALSE) if the column reference was 1
=VLOOKUP(A2,Data!B1:D6,3,FALSE) if the column reference was 2
=VLOOKUP(A2,Data!C1:D6,2,FALSE) if the column reference was 3

Hopefully it is a little more clear what I am looking for. Thanks for the help!

ratcat, works perfectly. Thanks!

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