Reference one cell in proximity to another

Hi everyone,

I attempted to search the forums for this question, but didn't have any luck. This is kind of difficult to explain, but I'll give it a shot. Is there any way to refer to one cell that is X number of spaces above, below, or to the left or right of another cell in a formula?

I want a VLOOKUP formula to grab the value of one cell and then subtract the value of the cell directly above the first cell. In the example below, cell V7 will be changing every time I update the workbook:

example:

=VLOOKUP($V$7,$A$2:$L$25,2,0)

Suppose that the VLOOKUP returned the value from cell B20, I'd want the next part of the formula to subtract the value of cell B19. Please let me know if you need any clarification. I'd appreciate any help. Thanks in advance!

Hi Fadeout,
With these types of offsets, best to work with INDEX and MATCH instead of VLOOKUPs (IMHO). The formula would be (based on the info you gave)

=INDEX($A$2:$L$25,MATCH($V$7,$A$2,0),2)-INDEX($A$2:$L$25,MATCH($V$7,$A$2,0)-1,2)

Does this work for you?

I think this is what you need.

=IF(INDIRECT("r"&(ROW()-1)&"c"&COLUMN(),0)=0,0,VLOOKUP($V$7,$A$2:$L$25,2,0)-INDIRECT("r"&(ROW()-1)&"c"&COLUMN(),0))