vlookup not returning correct reply

[Obfuscated]

Hi folks, I'm having a problem that has me baffled (Obfuscated). I have a couple columns similar to this...

Column A Column B

W12x140 W12x12
W12x150 W12x12
W12x160 W12x12
W12x170 W12x14
W12x180 W12x14

There are about 100 more similar entries in this listing with varying sizes.

Column A is a size (12) and weight (140) of a piece of steel.
Column B is the size (12) and width of the corresponding weights.

I have named the the entire set of entries as "sizes"

I enter "vlookup(sizes,"W12x150",2) in cell C1 and get a result of "W12x14".

Regardless of what I put in the "vlookup" entry, I always get the very last entry as the answer.

The vlookup query above should give W12x12 as the result but I always get W12x14...or whatever the last entry is in the range.

I have looked this over until I'm blue in the face...any help?

[DonkeyOte]

You want:

VLOOKUP("W12x150",sizes,2,FALSE)

Note: First argument is the criteria, the second is the range (sizes)

Be sure to review XL Help on VLOOKUP to understand that shown above in red... it's not immediately clear in this questions as to whether or not the FALSE statement is wanted or not.

[Obfuscated]

I miss-typed the above entry. My syntax was correct on the spreadsheet. I also, since then, added the "False" to the entry and got the correct reply. So now my question becomes... If "Range_lookup" is omitted, the value returned should be an approx. match. If an exact match is not found...etc. But there IS an exact match, that's why I never put in the "False". I've put it there now and am getting the right replies. Thanks for the reply and keep on excelling.

SOLVED

Doug