okay well that was what I had but it still just assigns a number that is
totally random
so you are saying
=MATCH(A2,{"orange","apple","pear","banana"......} ,1,2,3,4.....)

thats doesnt seem to work
"Bob Phillips" wrote:

=MATCH(A2,{"orange","apple","pear","banana"},0)

and copy down.

--
__________________________________
HTH

Bob

"Dan" wrote in message
...
I have a column containing text. In that column (200 rows worth) there are
40 different words. I need to know how to do the correct formula to find
all
the words that match and then place the number assigned to that word in
the
column and row next to that word. i.e. my column contains oranges,
apples,
etc orange=1, apples =2, etc. I need to have Excel go through the list
and
asssign 1 to oranges 2 to apples, etc.