How to offset a vlookup query by x columns to the left

Similar to the post at http://www.excelforum.com/excel-gene...x-columns.html, I want to pull data from a reference sheet. My problem is that the information is in a column to the left of the lookup data. I thought that the Offset function could pull data using a negative number from a row or column before the lookup data, but can only get a #N/A result. Attached is a sample file with my attempted formula: =VLOOKUP(B2,OFFSET(Reference!B:B,0,-1),1,FALSE)

Try this instead in A2 of your lookup sheet:

=INDEX(Reference!A:A,MATCH(B2,Reference!B:B,0))

Hope this helps.

Pete

Thanks Pete!

Worked perfectly.

Dave

Glad to hear it, Dave - thanks for feeding back.

Pete