many rows for 1 ref#, need to extract 1st row only for 1 ref#

Hi there,

I can't figure out the formula to extract the following problem:

Col A Col B Col C
Ref# Amount$ Description
123 $100 - This is the 1st line of ref# 123
123 $100 - This is the 2nd line of ref# 123
123 $100 - This is the 3rd line of ref# 123
456 $949 - This is the 1st line of ref# 456
456 $949 - This is the 2nd line of ref# 456
456 $949 - This is the 3rd line of ref# 456

I only need to extract the very first line in the column "Description" for
every separate "Ref#". I have about 13,000 rows of reference, but I only
need the first line for each Reference #.

I tried vlookup but it doesn't work.

Please help, and thanks.

Use match and index functions:

= index(C1:C99,match("123",A1:A99,0))

--
Best regards,
---
Yongjun CHEN
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"J LI" <J LI@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:001C11AD-432F-412D-9221-67EE2D56C157@microsoft.com...
> Hi there,
>
> I can't figure out the formula to extract the following problem:
>
> Col A Col B Col C
> Ref# Amount$ Description
> 123 $100 - This is the 1st line of ref# 123
> 123 $100 - This is the 2nd line of ref# 123
> 123 $100 - This is the 3rd line of ref# 123
> 456 $949 - This is the 1st line of ref# 456
> 456 $949 - This is the 2nd line of ref# 456
> 456 $949 - This is the 3rd line of ref# 456
>
> I only need to extract the very first line in the column "Description" for
> every separate "Ref#". I have about 13,000 rows of reference, but I only
> need the first line for each Reference #.
>
> I tried vlookup but it doesn't work.
>
> Please help, and thanks.