"Jay07" wrote:
Subject: VLOOKUP returning #N/A ??
This is the formula...
=VLOOKUP(A3,[PalActive]PalActive!$A$2:$H$206,3,FALSE)

A2 is a School Name and Column 3 is a 3-5 digit ID number.
I've checked the formatting and they are both the same.
Have tried the, as a numerical cells, general & text but
still getting the same #N/A value.
After a manual check I know that the value 599 SHOULD be
returned.

VLOOKUP returns a #N/A error because the lookup fails, not because of any
issue with column 3 of the lookup table.

Manually find what you think should match the contents of A3. Suppose it is
[PalActive]PalActive!$A$100. What does the following formula return?

=A3=[PalActive]PalActive!$A$100

If it returns FALSE as expected, start looking for reasons.

It is unclear from your comments what A3 and [PalActive]PalActive!$A$100
might contain.

If A3 is a school name (not A2 [sic]), look for differences in the number
and placement of spaces. To begin with, try:

=TRIM(SUBSTITUTE(A3,CHAR(160),""))=TRIM(SUBSTITUTE ([PalActive]PalActive!$A$100,CHAR(160),""))

The theory is that some of the spaces might be HTML non-breaking spaces
(&NBSP) and/or there are leading or trailing spaces.

Note that the suggestions above are for diagnostic purposes to help identify
the problem. They are not intended to be solutions.

If you still cannot find the problem, I suggest that you upload an example
Excel file (devoid of any private data) that demonstrates the problem to a
file-sharing website.

Then post the "shared", "public" or "view-only" link (aka URL; http://...)
in a response here. The following is a list of some free file-sharing
websites; or use your own.

Box.Net: http://www.box.net/files
Windows Live Skydrive: http://skydrive.live.com
MediaFi http://www.mediafire.com
FileFactory: http://www.filefactory.com
FileSavr: http://www.filesavr.com
RapidSha http://www.rapidshare.com