An curved arrow pointing right. VLOOKUP is one of the most useful functions in Excel. You can pull specific data out of huge data sets with a simple formula. Just watch. Produced by Sara ...

The V in VLOOKUP stands for vertical ... Excel has other functions that can do more powerful lookups. Excel's XLOOKUP function is similar to VLOOKUP but can look both vertically and horizontally ...

As a long-term Excel enthusiast, I have always enjoyed using VLOOKUP, one of Excel's best-known lookup functions. However, Microsoft's introduction of XLOOKUP in 2019 changed everything.

An curved arrow pointing right. Once you have mastered VLOOKUP in Excel it's time to move on to INDEX/MATCH. This formula combination gives the same results but without the problems of VLOOKUP.