Use VLOOKUP(). Instead of, for example,

=VLOOKUP(A1,B1:B500,3,false)

use

=VLOOKUP(A1,$B$1:$B$500,3,FALSE)

This will prevent the reference to the table from shifting down.

A good tutorial on VLOOKUP can be found he

http://www.contextures.com/xlFunctions02.html

--
Kind regards,

Niek Otten
Microsoft MVP - Excel

"Teedie" wrote in message ...
| At my job a spreadsheet needs to be filled out every single morning
| documenting all of the items we've produced from the previous day. In
| addition to the item number, the item's weight and size needs to be filled
| in. There are numerous products that we sell on a daily basis, so you can
| imagine how this might get repetitive. Is there a way that I can set up a
| reference table so that when I type in the item number, certain data
| associated with that item number (i.e. weight and size) would automatically
| fill in designated columns along the same row? I've tried to use the lookup
| function but the reference table shifts down one row each time I progress
| down the spread sheet.
|
| Thanks!