vllokup formatting problem

[pat67]

Hi, i have a vlookup to a table that is linked to a access db that has both dates and percentages in it. when i do a simple vlookup the data is fine but i cannot do conditional formatting. however, if i change the vlookup to this

=VLOOKUP($E5,tblCurrent,4,FALSE)*1

the conditional formatting works but anything that is a date becomes a percentage. so 11/26/13 becomes 4160400%

i tried using the text function for the last part of the formula but it didn't work

any ideas?

thanks

[Pepe Le Mokko]

Hi
perhaps post a small sample sheet

[pat67]

first time on this forum. not sure how i could post a sample sheet. the file has two tabs. one from access and one i am trying to format

[pat67]

test.xlsx

tried to attach a file

[pat67]

my belief is that i need to use code to format each cell on the fly depending on if it is percent or date

[martindwilson]

have you tried custom formatting the cell with the vlookup in as something like
[<=100]0.0%;[>100]mm/dd/yyyy;General

[pat67]

i fixed it. i did a vlookup like this
=IF(VLOOKUP($E5,tblCurrent,4,FALSE)*1<=1,VLOOKUP($E5,tblCurrent,4,FALSE)*1,VLOOKUP($E5,tblCurrent,4,FALSE))

so it looks to see if there is a percent, <=1 and times by 1 to make it a number. then if not it just takes the text. works perfectly.

I do have a different question though. in doing a vlookup instead of counting over columns, can i have it look for specific text?

[pat67]

never mind. i can use index and match. thanks

[FDibbins]

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[pat67]

Thanks for the advise