Formula Guide

Free VLOOKUP Generator

VLOOKUP is one of the most popular Excel functions. It searches for a value in the first column of a range and returns a value in the same row from another column. Modern alternatives like XLOOKUP and INDEX-MATCH are even more powerful.

What It Does

Looks up a value in a table by searching the leftmost column and returning a value from a specified column in the same row.

Syntax

=VLOOKUP(lookup_value, table_array, col_index_num, [range_lookup])

Modern alternative:
=XLOOKUP(lookup_value, lookup_array, return_array, [if_not_found])

Example

Example: Find employee salary by name
=VLOOKUP("John", A2:D100, 4, FALSE)

Data:
| Name  | Dept  | Title   | Salary |
| John  | Sales | Manager | 75000  |
| Sarah | Eng   | Dev     | 85000  |

Result: 75000

Pro Tips

Use FALSE for exact match (most common use case)
XLOOKUP is the modern replacement — it can search in any direction
INDEX-MATCH is more flexible and doesn't require the lookup column to be first
VLOOKUP can't look left — use INDEX-MATCH or XLOOKUP instead

Try the AI VLOOKUP Generator

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