Friday, February 17, 2006

Excel Video

When I write for this blog and other excel webpages, I always wonder if you understand what I wrote. In the first place, you have to understand what I write and then, you would have to translate those words into images so that you could appreciate what I am trying to tell you. It must have been pretty painful for you.

But now, I have the solution. That is to produce video. In this way, I could explain what I am doing and you could watch the effects in the video. I am sure you would apprecate the tips and tricks better than what you are doing now. It is like you are in a training course where the training explains the steps and you watch it come true. This means that you can remember the steps by listening and seeing. Here is one of my recent works http://www.advanced-excel.com/find_blank_cells.html. Enjoy.

Monday, February 13, 2006

About Vlookup

Assuming that I have 2 tables. One table contains a list of invoice numbers. Another contains another list of invoice numbers with the second column containing the value of the invoice found in the 1st column.

I try to set up a vlookup formula in the cell next to the invoice number in tbale 1, to look up the invoice number in table 2 based on invoice numerb given in table 1. If the invoice number is found, I want the invoice value (residing in column 2 table 2) to be returned in the cell. In some isntances, the invoice values were returned the right results but on other times, it gives me an error syntax "#N/A". When I check table 2, the invoice number exist but the invoice value was not returned. What could have gone wrong?

To use vlookup to lookup for a particular value/text in another table (Table 2 in this case), you must make sure that the format is the same as that given in Table 1. If the invoice number in Table 1 is a number, while the invoice number in table 2 is a text, vlookup will return a "N/A" results indicating that the invoice number cannot be found. As such, before you use vlookup formula between 2 tables, you must make sure that the format for (the invoice numbers) in table 1 and 2 are the same. Only then can Excel find the value and return the results you are look for.