The function you asked about should also work though too, I was just
proposing a new idea. I would check the formatting of the cells you are
looking up and the cell you are entering the formula into. you could also try
to do something like this just to see if it works. in a5 enter 7 and in b5
enter your formula =LOOKUP(A5, C1:C4, A1:A4)

"Gluefoot" wrote:

unfortunately yes, it has to be in that order.

"JBoyer" wrote:

Does it have to be set up in that order.. like could you have a table C A B
with your values? The reason I'm asing is because you could use a vlookup but
that only looks at the leftmost column of your table.

"Gluefoot" wrote:

I cannot figure out how to return the value of a cell to the left of my
reference. For example I have a table that looks like this....
A B C
1Bob 1 5
2John 2 6
3Tom 3 7
4Tim 4 8

I need to find the number 7 in column C and return the value of the cell in
column A with the same row number. Make sense? i tried something like this:
=LOOKUP(7, C1:C4, A1:A4) but that keeps returning the wrong value. also,
column A is not and cannot be sorted alphabetically.