IF Statement - 64 Levels of Nesting Breached

Hello,

I'm trying to categorize SKUs in my item list based on values defined in a table on Excel. I thought I had a solution until Excel gave me the error for maximum levels of IF nesting. The formula I was using goes along these lines:

IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("Jack",$C4)),"JACK", IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("Cutting",$C4)),"CUTT", IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("Hammer",$C4)),"HMMR", IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("Lighting",$C4)),"LIGH", ..............

I have a list of categories in column A and a list of 4-character values matching the category in column B.
Ex: Hammer in Column A, HAMM in column B. I need a formula that will find the word "Hammer" (Column A) within a product description "Industrial Hammer Drill" ($C4), and attribute the value "HAMM" (Column B) to the item. The same idea applies for the near 500 categories that are in my spreadsheet.

Thanks!!

Welcome to the forum!

This is where you need to use a lookup table - set up a table with your full names on the left and your abbreviations on the right, then refer to it in a VLOOKUP formula:

=VLOOKUP(C4,$A$2:$B$500,2,0)

https://support.office.com/en-gb/art...8-93a18ad188a1

Will you please attach a sample Excel workbook? We are not able to work with or manipulate a picture of one and nobody wants to have to recreate your data from scratch.

1. Make sure that your sample data are REPRESENTATIVE of your real data. The use of unrepresentative data is very frustrating and can lead to long delays in reaching a solution.

2. Make sure that your desired results are also shown (mock up the results manually).

3. Make sure that all confidential data is removed or replaced with dummy data first (e.g. names, addresses, E-mails, etc.).

4. Try to avoid using merged cells as they cause lots of problems.

Unfortunately the attachment icon doesn't work at the moment, so to attach an Excel file you have to do the following: just before posting, scroll down to Go Advanced and then scroll down to Manage Attachments. Now follow the instructions at the top of that screen.

Please pay particular attention to point 2 (above): without an idea of your intended outcomes, it is often very difficult to offer appropriate advice.

Try this in C2 copied down:

=IFERROR(LOOKUP(1000,SEARCH($G$2:$G$6,B2),$H$2:$H$6),"")

You're welcome!

One of many little tricks I've learnt by being a member here.

If that takes care of your original question, please select Thread Tools from the menu link above and mark this thread as SOLVED. Thanks.