Lookup Table in Excel

Lookup Table in Excel (Table of Content)

Lookup Table in Excel
How to Use Lookup Table in Excel?

The lookup function is not as famous to use as Vlookup and Hlookup, here we need to understand that when we perform Lookup function it always returns the approximate match. So there is no true or false argument as it was in Vlookup and Hlookup function. In this topic, we are going to learn about Lookup Table in Excel.

Whenever lookup finds an exact match in lookup vector, it returns the corresponding value in a given cell, and when it doesn’t find an exact match it goes back and returns the most recent possible value but from the previous row.

Whenever we have the larger value available in the lookup table or lookup value, it returns the last value from the table and when we have lower than the lowest it will return #N/A, as we have understood the same in our previous example.

Remember the below formula for Lookup:

=Lookup(Lookup Value, Lookup Vector, result vector)

Here let us know the arguments:

Lookup Value: Value we are searching

Lookup Vector: Range of lookup value – (1 Row of 1 Column)

Result Vector: Must be the same size of lookup vector, it’s optional

It can be used in many ways, i.e. Grading of students, Categorizing, retrieve approx. Position, Age group, etc.
Lookup function assumes Lookup Vector is in ascending order.

How to Use Lookup Table in Excel?

Here we have explained how to use Lookup Table in Excel with the following examples as given below.

You can download this Lookup Table Excel Template here – Lookup Table Excel Template

Example #1

For this example, we need data from the school students with their name and marks in a particular subject. Now, as we can see the below image we have the data of the students as required.

Here also we need a lookup vector, the value which defines marks in grades. We can see the image, at the right side of the image we have decided the criteria for every grade, we will have to make it in ascending order because as you all know, Look up every time assumes that the data is in ascending order. Now as you can see we have entered our formula in D2 Column, =lookup(C2, F2: G6). Here C2 is lookup value and F2: G6 is the lookup table/lookup vector.

We can define our lookup table by assigning it a name as any alphabet, let’s assume A, so we can write A instead if it’s range F2: G6. So as per the below image you can see that we have given the name to our grade table is A.

Now while applying the formula we can place A instead of its range, the same you can see in the below Image. We have applied the formula as =lookup(C2, A), so here C2 is our lookup value and A is our lookup table or range of lookup.

Now we can see that as Mahesh’s marks are 32, so from our lookup/grade table, the lookup will start to look for the value 32 and till 35 marks and its grade as D, so it will show Grade ‘D’

If we drag the same till D8, we can see the grade’s of all the students as per the below image.

As per the above image you can see that we have derived the Grade from the Provided Marks. Similarly, we can use this formula for other purposes, let’s see another example.

Example #2

Similar to the above table here we have gathered the data of a company with Name, their salary and with their designations. From the below image we can see that we have given the name “B” to our lookup table.

Now we need the data to be filled in the designation column, So here we will put the formula in C2.

Here we can see the Result in the Designation Column.

Now we can see that after dragging we have fetched the designations of the staff according to their salary. We have operated this operation same as a recent example, here instead of marks we have considered the salary of employees and instead of Grade we have considered the designation.

So we can use this formula for our different purposes academic, personal and sometimes while making rate card of a business model to categorize the things in manners of costly things and the cheap things.

Example #3

Here as improvisation, we can make a simulator by using lookup formula, As per the below image we can see we have used the same data and instead of the table now we can put data.

We can see here in cell no. I4 we have applied the lookup formula, so whenever we put a value in cell no. I3, our lookup formula will look into the data and put the appropriate designation in the cell.

For example, here we have taken the value 15 as salary, so the formula will lookup into the table and provide us the designation according to the table, which is Executive.

So accordingly we can put any value in the cell, But here is a catch, whenever we put a value which is higher than 100 it will show the designation as CEO, and when we put a value lower than 3, it will show #N/A.

Conclusion

Lookup function can lookup value from a single column or a single row of the range. Lookup value always returns value on a vector, Lookups are of two types of lookup Vector and lookup array. Lookup can be used for various purposes, as we have seen above examples, Lookup can be used in Grading for students we can make age groups and also for the various works.

Things to Remember About Lookup Table in Excel

While using this function, we have to remember that this function assumes that the lookup table or vector is sorted in ascending order.
And you must know that this formula is not case sensitive.
This formula always performs the approximate match, so true of false like arguments will not take place with formula.
It can only lookup to one – column range.