I have noticed other vlookup codes in excel and after looking at them have started to try and use them myself.

2 questions.

1) The codes i saw had a lot of $ signs in them. I dont use them when i use vlookup and it seems to work fine. Is there a reason $ signs are added?

2) I have a vlookup code "=VLOOKUP(A9,Database!A1:F8000,2,FALSE)" and so on for a few lines and when it finds a blank box it puts 0 in there to represent that. Is there a way i can have it so that instead of putting a zero in it just leaves the box blank?