Keeping zeros in front of number

[gronnies]

Is there a way to keep zeros in front of a number that ALSO shows in the formula bar?

I have product numbers such as 0022 but when I use a vlookup, it doesn't work because it is looking for 22.

I need to keep the numbers in original format for it to work.

[zbor]

format your result cell with same format

[DonkeyOte]

see the TEXT function, eg:

=VLOOKUP(TEXT(C1,"0000"),A:B,2,0)

where C1 holds 22