Lookup Excel from Another Sheet

What this does

VLOOKUP finds a value in the first column of a table and returns a value from a column to its right on the same row — the classic way to pull a price from a product code or a name from an ID. The fourth argument is the one that bites: FALSE (or 0) demands an exact match, which is almost always what you want; TRUE assumes the first column is sorted and does an approximate match. Most people learn this as a sequence of clicks and forget it by next week; learning it as a pattern instead is what lets you apply it to the next, slightly different version of the problem without starting from scratch. That is the difference this page is trying to make. For “lookup excel from another sheet”, the reliable version is a short checking loop, not just the first command that appears to work. Run it on a deliberately small range first, watch how the affected sheet change, and only then apply the same setup to the full sheet. When a formula is involved, keep the inputs labelled beside it, reference cells instead of typing values, and apply number formatting only after the result checks out. That is what makes a layout choice that keeps the sheet readable and sortable useful in real work: repeatable, auditable, and not dependent on memory or luck.

A worked example

With product codes in column A and prices in column B, =VLOOKUP("SKU-204", A2:B100, 2, FALSE) returns the price next to SKU-204. The 2 means “second column of the range”. If the code is not found you get #N/A — wrap it as =IFERROR(VLOOKUP(...), "not found") to show a friendly message instead. Lookups are how separate tables talk to each other — joining orders to customers, codes to descriptions, IDs to prices. Mastering VLOOKUP (and its successor XLOOKUP) turns a pile of sheets into a connected model. One habit worth forming early: name the cells that hold your inputs, so the formula reads in plain language instead of a string of cell addresses. A reviewer — or you in three months — can then follow the logic without decoding what B7 and D2 were supposed to mean, which is most of what makes a sheet maintainable.

In Google Sheets

Google Sheets handles this almost identically to Excel. The formula syntax above is the same, and the menu lives under a slightly different label rather than a ribbon tab. Use the platform toggle at the top of the page to switch every keyboard shortcut between Windows and Mac, and expect at most cosmetic differences in naming. The aim was to get you unstuck fast and leave you a little more capable than a copy-paste would. The answer is at the top and the detail above shows why it holds — so the next time a colleague asks, you can answer without reaching for search. Here is the takeaway for “lookup excel from another sheet”: copy the answer if you are busy, but if you have a spare few minutes, rebuild the example in Excel yourself with the tool above open beside it. That single pass — type it, run it, watch the result move when you change an input — is what turns a formula you found into a technique you trust. Keep your inputs labelled and referenced, never hard-coded, and the same sheet stays correct and auditable as it grows. Done that way, you will not need to look this up again, and you will be the person others ask.

Common mistakes

• Omitting FALSE, so VLOOKUP returns a wrong approximate match on unsorted data.
• Counting the column number from the sheet rather than from the start of the table range.
• Looking up a value that is not in the leftmost column — VLOOKUP only looks right.
• Breaking the formula by inserting a column inside the table; use XLOOKUP or INDEX/MATCH for resilience.

Frequently asked questions