Excel 2007 "If" function not cooperating

[acroley1]

I have a worksheet A with text in cells B2:B20 and then similar text in cells C2:C20 (in the C column, the text is shorter, more concise).

In a different worksheet (worksheet B) I have the same text as in cells B2:B20 of worksheet A...but I have rows and rows of it. I want to match the text so it finds the corresponding text in worksheet A and copies column C into worksheet A.

I used an If function to match a particular text string to B2:B20 and then return the coordsponding value in C2:C20. What I'm really trying to do is clean up data that I download from a report so the statements are shorter/more consice for graph presentation.

I just used an IF function:
=IF(C2=Validations!B:B,Validations!C:C,"*")

The IF function works for the first 20 rows....but on the worksheet I'm using it for, it goes down to row 96. I think the problem is, that it's looking at the exact same row. But it's funny because in the "function" box, I see it looks like it's finding the statement is true at some point (one of the rows) but then it returns a false value!

Will IF not work here? Thx - Andrea

[NBVC]

Try:

=IFERROR(VLOOKUP(C2,Validations!B:C,2,0),"*")

copied down.