Start VLOOKUP from a different column

[Tony Vargo]

Hi all.

From my understanding of the VLOOKUP formula, it looks down column A, finds what your searching for, then goes across to a specified cell and returns the value? I was wondering if its possible to adjust the formula to start the search from column C?

I am pasting information in from another sheet (a report from another department), so the list of peoples names I run the formula from is in column C, not column A.

Any ideas guys?

Thanks,

Tony

[darkyam]

If the value to be returned is in B, you can use an Index/Match combination, something like =INDEX(B:B,Match(D1,C:C,0)) where D1 is the lookup value.

[md1972]

Cut and paste the names column so it is in column A???

[martindwilson]

vlookup starts in the column first in the range not necessarily col a, but can only look to the right.
so if your data to lookup id in column c and as long as the data to retrieve is to the right no problem else use index/match as outlined above,
so range eg c1:e20 column c is 1 column e is 3
so =vlookup(a1,c1:e20,2,false) would look at c 1 to c20 for a match of whats in a1 if found return the value from the corresponding row of col d (column 2 of the array c1:e20)

[Tony Vargo]

Thanks all, some great ideas as usual.

Went with martindwilson's idea in the end. So simple, just adjusted the range!