Can't find the error: VLOOKUP not returning the value

Question

I am working with an excel file and I am trying to \"map\" some values with the vLookUp function.

The first parameter of the vLookUp function is giving me headaches:

Answer 1

The issue is that you haven't converted you values in column A to numbers. Since the first three values in your lookup range are themselves strings, they are matching the stringified numbers.

In order to fix, click on one of the numbers in column A, press Ctrl+Space to select the entire column, and then click on the exclamation mark and select Convert to number:

After that, you'll notice that your previous values now show errors, so follow the same process to conver them to numbers as well. @nutsch's solution is does not require you to modify your data, so if the type of your data is not crucial, that is a good fix as well :)

Answer 2

Using this formula will address the issue highlighted by RocketDonkey

=VLOOKUP(TEXT(D1,"#"),$A$1:$B$219,2,FALSE)

Answer 3

This has been a major pain for me as well(Excel is full of stupid assumptions). What I do is copy the entire column to a text editor, change the column to match the lookup column, and copy and paste the data back into the column. This has worked well for me.

Answer 4

May I highlight the little noticeable reply that Barry Houdini came with in 2012 above:

    =VLOOKUP(D1&"",$A$1:$B$219,2,FALSE)

that really works (for me in Excel 2010), despite you are dealing with Numbers or a mix of Numbers or Text strings.

Cudos to Barry, you are a truely Houdini