When working on a worksheet, there will be times when you want to find information without having to scroll through long lists. That's when you can take advantage of the LOOKUP function. Say you have a list of 1,000 clients with three columns: Last name, phone number, and age. To find the wikiHow Monique phone number, for example, you can look up the name in a column of a worksheet. You can sort the names alphabetically to make it faster. What if it turns out that many clients whose last names start with "w"? It takes extra precision and also a long time to look for it on the list. However, with the LOOKUP function you can simply type a name, and the worksheet will display the phone number and age for the person. Sounds useful, right?
Step
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Step 1. Make a two-column list at the bottom of the page
In this example, one column has numbers and the other column has random words.
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Step 2. Specify the cell as where the user will select
This is the cell that will display the drop-down list.
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Step 3. Once the cell is clicked, the cell border will darken
Select the DATA tab on the toolbar, then select VALIDATION.
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Step 4. A small window will appear, select LIST from the ALLOW list
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Step 5. To select the source of the list, in other words your first column, select the button with the red arrow
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Step 6. Select the first column from the list then press enter and click OK when the data validation window appears
You will now see a box with arrows, which when clicked will bring up a list.
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Step 7. Select another box where you want more information to appear
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Step 8. Once you have clicked on the box, go to the INSERT and FUNCTION tabs
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Step 9. Once the box appears, select LOOKUP & REFERENCE from the list of categories
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Step 10. Look for LOOKUP in the list and then double click it
Another box will appear. Click OK.
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Step 11. For lookup_value select the cell with the drop down list
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Step 12. For lookup_vector select the first column from your list
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Step 13. For result_vector select the second column
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Step 14. From here, whenever you retrieve something from the drop-down list, the information will be automatically changed
Tips
- Make sure when you are in the DATA VALIDATION window (Step 5) the box with the words IN-CELL DROPDOWN is checked.
- When you're done, you can change the font color to white to hide the list.
- Save work periodically, especially if your list is long.
- If you want to type in the keywords you want to search for, you can go directly to step 7.