Thread: Find exact match only using LOOKUP (not VLOOKUP)?

I am in the process of creating a file using a few different lookups and I'm running into some problems. I am looking to use a function in order to perform a lookup and return exact matches only, but I can't use VLOOKUP (which I know allows you to find exact matches only by stating FALSE at the end) since I have already used it in a different part of this sheet (can't change the order of the columns since the leftmost column is being used by this VLOOKUP).

Is there a way to use the LOOKUP function but have it only return exact matches? I was thinking I could use some kind of IF function but I'm having trouble coming up with a solution.

Why can't you use VLOOKUP again? You are able to use VLOOKUP more than once in a sheet

Also, an alternative is INDEX/MATCH.

Hi Paul,

I agree with NBVC that if you are already using VLookup you have it available. Lookup was in the very early versions of Excel and isn't as useful. The very first Lookup() defaulted to True so it didn't check if the match was exact or not. The alternative is to use Index/Match but that is a lot harder than VLookup.

I really think you have an understand problem. It doesn't make sense to me when you say "you've already used VLookup" somewhere else in the sheet and don't want (can't?) use it again. Why might that be? Did you think you can only use it 3 times or ???