Thread: Link Adjacent Cells

I am trying to link names with the numbers in the cells adjacent to them. I have a column of names adjacent to a column of numbers that correspond to each name; let's call this the key. I also have a clumn where I want to be able to write down one of the names and have the corresponding number populate the adjacent cell.

I have attached an example: 2-1-2012 11-11-05 AM.jpg In this example I have names in Column A which correspond to each adjacent number in Column B. I want to be able to write any of the names in Column D (I have written 7 there already) and have the correct corresponding number show up in Column E. The example given should populate Column E with 10(E3), 40(E4), 10(E5), 30(E6), 40(E7), 20(E8), 20(E9).

I understand that I can do this by embedding a bunch of IF formulas within each other but my actual list is much longer than 4 names and that can get very long and tedious. Any ideas?

Put this in E3:

=VLOOKUP(D3,$A$3:$B$6,2,0)

then copy down.

Hope this helps.

Pete

Thanks You! That works perfect. I was also wondering if there was a way to assign the number to the word. In the same example used below, if I wrote in a random cell "=D3xD4" could I make it so that it comes up with a numerical answer (should be 400)?

No, you would use:

=vlookup(d3,...) * vlookup(d4,...)

Alternatively, you could assign names to the cells in column B using the names from column A. Then you would be able to write:

=James * Sally

or you could use cell references like this:

=INDIRECT(D3) * INDIRECT(D4)

Hope this helps.

Pete