Vlookup Error, please help

[PaulW]

I've done loads of V and H lookups, and never had much of a problem that I
couldn't get round.

Tried to do one today on a sheet set up by someone else, and got an error.

Got as far as =VLOOKUP(B2,Expense!A2:C50,3,
When I start to type in FALSE, as soon as I hit the F I get

"There is more than one cell with this label: F"
And it asks me which label to use... I have no idea what this is about, I
have no idea what to set it to, and if I just try cancel, Excel errors and
closes itself asking if I want to send an error report.

Can anyone help me please?

[robert111]

Are you typing in "false" in cell B2? Does the lookup table have only one "false" in its first column, and is first column in ascending or descending order?

[PaulW]

B2 contains a number, the FALSE is the 4th argument in the Vlookup. One of
these numbers is repeated in the first column of the table, and the lookup
table isn't sorted.
In the past this hasn't made a difference, if something is repeated it just
returns the first response, and its never made a difference if they're in
order or not.
I deleted the multiple and ordered the lookup table, but I still get the
same error.

"robert111" wrote:

>
> Are you typing in "false" in cell B2? Does the lookup table have only
> one "false" in its first column, and is first column in ascending or
> descending order?
>
>
> --
> robert111
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[Dave Peterson]

There's an option under Tools|Options|Calculation tab:

Accept labels in formulas

From xl2003's help:

Lets you use label names in formulas if ranges on your worksheet have row or
column labels.

You may want to uncheck this option (it sounds like you have at least a couple
of headers that contain F.

A (temporary???) alternative may be to use 0 instead of false.

=VLOOKUP(B2,Expense!A2:C50,3,0)

(But I'd turn off that setting and never worry about it again.)


PaulW wrote:
>
> I've done loads of V and H lookups, and never had much of a problem that I
> couldn't get round.
>
> Tried to do one today on a sheet set up by someone else, and got an error.
>
> Got as far as =VLOOKUP(B2,Expense!A2:C50,3,
> When I start to type in FALSE, as soon as I hit the F I get
>
> "There is more than one cell with this label: F"
> And it asks me which label to use... I have no idea what this is about, I
> have no idea what to set it to, and if I just try cancel, Excel errors and
> closes itself asking if I want to send an error report.
>
> Can anyone help me please?

--

Dave Peterson