MS Excel Lookup to match a range

Question

Good morning,

I wish to automate the 'action list' on a spreadsheet.

Currently, column B contains numeric values, the type of which is described in column A. I would like Column C to do this: 1. Look for a specific word in Column A 2. Based upon the result of (1.), look at a table of values 3. Find where the value in Column B falls within the table range 4. Using the position in the range, return the action

For example, if I have 3 tables called Red, White and Blue, then typing 'Big White Light' in Colum A would point to the range of values in table 'White' only. The numeric value in column B would then finds it's position within the range available in table 'White' and return the 'Action'

Answer 1

In order for VLookup to work you have to change the "tables" ranges (columns E, G, I) to just numbers (lower limit of each range) and use a cell's custom format to show them as you want see here .

=IF(ISERR(FIND(LOWER($E$1);LOWER(A2)))=FALSE;VLOOKUP(ABS(B2);$E$2:$F$4;2;TRUE);IF(ISERR(FIND(LOWER($G$1);LOWER(A2)))=FALSE;VLOOKUP(ABS(B2);$G$2:$H$5;2;TRUE);IF(ISERR(FIND(LOWER($I$1);LOWER(A2)))=FALSE;VLOOKUP(ABS(B2);$I$2:$J$5;2;TRUE);"")))

Answer 2

You should retype the numbers into your lookup tables and use custom number formatting to show the number ranges. For example, type 21 into E3 then apply a custom number format of 0-3\\0 to make it look like 21-30 . Or type 71 into I5 and give it a custom number format of >=0 to make it look like >=71 .

If you do that then you can treat the number ranges as real numbers.

=VLOOKUP(ABS(B2), IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("white", A2)), E:F,  IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("blue", A2)), G:H, I:J)), 2, TRUE)