Sounds like the numbers in your lookup table were entered as Text
(changing the formatting doesn't change that). Try copying an empty
cell, selecting the numbers, then choose Edit/Paste Special, selecting
the Values and Add radio buttons. This should coerce Text numbers to
actual numbers.

In article ,
Joe M. wrote:

Also I am using =VLOOKUP(J5,'Ship List'!A$1:B$30,2,FALSE) to look in column A
on another worksheet (Ship List) and return the value in column B. I have
successfully used vlookup before. Column A in Ship List is sorted and I have
tried formatting both the lookup value and Col A from the lookup array as
text, general, number. However only a few cells return matches. Also I have
made sure the lookup val and Col A are the same length. The lookup value is a
5 digit number. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Joe M.