Within the brackets, “F2” is telling the VLOOKUP to find the value “Apples”, which you find in cell F2. Let’s start with a VLookup using the below table and using the formula: VLOOKUP stands for Vertical Lookup because it looks vertically for the word then horizontally for the value while HLOOKUP stands for Horizontal Lookup because it looks horizontally for the word and then vertically for the value. Instead, with VLOOKUP() you can tell Google Sheets to look vertically through a set of data until it finds a match for the word you’re searching for and then read horizontally to find the corresponding value in an adjacent column. The order of the fruits, and what fruits are available change each month, so a simple fixed cell subtraction won’t work.
In the example below, imagine you want to track the change in numbers of Apples, Oranges and Pears between January and February. This can be really handy if you have different sets of data for the same objects in your spreadsheet, for example, several rows of data about an individual product, person, or project. In a nutshell, they let you search for a match for a specific word (or other ID) and then read a value from a corresponding row or column. Google Sheets’ LOOKUP functions are best explained with an example.
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How to use VLOOKUP & HLOOKUP to join data in Google Sheets Use responsibly!įor more ways to get your data into Google Sheets check out our 4 ways to automagically import live data into spreadsheets post. Import the contents of a CSV file from a specified URL using:Ĭoupled with Google Sheet’s’ scripting and automation features, IMPORT functions become a very powerful tool for scraping and structuring data from public sources.
=IMPORTXML(" ", the contents of a list or table from a specified URL using: For example, you can import a list of links from a specified URL with. These allow it to fetch data into your spreadsheet from a variety of sources, including XML, HTML, RSS and CSV - perfect for importing lists of blog posts, tweaks, product inventories or data from another service. One of Google Sheets’ more unexpected features are its IMPORT functions. How to import data into Google Sheets using IMPORT functions =INDEX(A:A,1,1) for example will always return the first cell in column A.Ĭombining INDEX() with COUNTA() you can also create a formula that will always get the last value in a column.ģ. In Google Sheets, the formula INDEX() allows you to return the value of a cell by specifying which row and column to look at in the specified array. However, there is a solution the INDEX function. This is surprisingly difficult to do if you want the result to be calculated in a fixed cell every time. However, if you’re adding new data at regular intervals, perhaps a new row every week, there’s often some maintenance required to keep your functions working.įor example, imagine you always want to calculate the change between the bottom cell in your spreadsheet with the previous value. Spreadsheets are much easier to work with when you have a fixed data set. How to return the first or last value in a Google Sheet using the INDEX function You specify what character you’d like to add between the values, and the cell values you’d like to join.Ģ. If you’d like to combine lots of values in a Google Sheet, the JOIN function is also useful. To produce the following text “4 Apples and 5 Pears” In the example below we’ll use the following formula: Sometimes it can be handy to use the cells in your spreadsheet to construct a piece of text - perhaps to summarise some key values, or even generate some html.īy typing & you can concatenate (join) the contents of a cell with others or, using quotes, any other text you wish to insert. How to group data in Google Sheets using pivot tables.How to use VLOOKUP & HLOOKUP to join data in Google Sheets.How to import data into Google Sheets using IMPORT functions.How to return the first or last value in a Google Sheet using the INDEX function.Specifies a logical test to be performed.Click a Google Sheets function below to read about it. IFS: Evaluates multiple conditions and returns a value that corresponds to the first true condition.IFERROR: Returns the first argument if it is not an error value, otherwise returns the second argument if present, or a blank if the second argument is absent.Ensure that value_if_true and value_if_false are provided to the function in the correct order - this is the single most common source of problems with IF.Value_if_false - The value the function returns if logical_expression is FALSE.
Value_if_true - The value the function returns if logical_expression is TRUE. Logical_expression - An expression or reference to a cell containing an expression that represents some logical value, i.e. IF(logical_expression, value_if_true, value_if_false)
Returns one value if a logical expression is `TRUE` and another if it is `FALSE`.