I have an additional question thow: what about if the "BOLTS" won't be always
in the cell B2, cause THAT is my problem, that the corresponding rows are
changing, I mean today "BOLTS" is in B2, tomorrow could be in B4 or B1,
according with how many materials were added or deleted. Do you have any idea
how can I make a reference related with the name of the material?

Many thanks in advance!!! I really appreciate your help!

"Ian P" wrote:

Try:

=vlookup(b2,C1:D40,2,0)

Substitute your range in place of C1:D40. You will also need to change the
2 to pick the value from the correct column.

Bear in mind that in your example, "BOLTS" will need to match exactly the
"BOLTS" in the range you are searching for.

HTH

Ian



"Liliana" wrote:

I often need to compare 2 values of the same material and I thought that a
reference to one of them would help me a lot. Well, the value I have chosen
to refer to is corresponding to a certain material from the spreadsheet (a
certain row than) and keeps changing its place in the column in accordance
with how many materials have been added lately. Well, I wish to make a
reference to the cell like this:
i.e.
in B2 I have the name of material="BOLTS"...................in G2 I have the
value that interests me =400
I want to add or substract (doesn't matter) this value (without knowing that
it still is in G2, maybe this time will be in G6, having another 4 materials
added above "BOLTS") to another cell, from another report that correspond to
the "BOLTS" name somehow. I know I have to make a reference to the name of
material (the text, the only one which doesn't change), but I couldn't find a
direct way.
I'm not sure I succeeded to make myself very clear, but any idea would be
appreciated for sure!