Categorizing labels??

[gvb]

Newbie question =


I think this may be a LOOKUP question or a nested IF statement but... i have a column A with a large variety of names and i want column B to categorize and simplify column A into other labels.

So,

if column A = dog, cat, mouse column B = animal

if column A = pink, blue, green column B = color

etc,etc... obviously my example is simplified but same principle. i cant seem to get any of the logical functions to work for the amount of column A variety i have.


any thoughts,
greg

[Ron Coderre]

Perhaps something like this will work for you....

With
E1:F6 containing this list:

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And A1 containing an item from the first column of that list.

This formula returns the category for that item:

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Does that help?

[gvb]

i dont really understand that vlookup function very well. let me be a little more specific.

i have a list of lables in column A, and i can easy just type in the value for column B, but it will take me a year as i have 1000 rows of data for column A. I need to write a simple formula which will output text based on the value in column A, therefore i can drag the formula down instead of manually typing all the names.

its basically a nested IF, but i have more than 7 values in column A so i cant keep adding IF statements.

[Ron Coderre]

I attached a sample workbook that demonstrates the use of the VLOOKUP
function.

Post back if you have more questions.

[gvb]

actually Ron that works perfectly. sorry for the quick response earlier, its just i thought you didnt understand what i was asking.