You're welcome. Thanks for the feedback!

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"Wilma" wrote in message
...
Thank you for taking the time to explain the differences--it was a big
help!

"T. Valko" wrote:

The main difference between VLOOKUP and INDEX is that with INDEX you can
define both the row where to find your lookup_value and the column from
which to get the result. With VLOOKUP, the row where to find the
lookup_value is done by the function itself. You can only define from
which
column to get the result. INDEX can be used to "lookup" in both
directions,
left to right and right to left, but VLOOKUP can only be used from left
to
right.

So, it depends on the application as to which is better. INDEX *might* be
slightly more efficient in certain applications but in my tests based on
your formula both methods produce identical calculation times.

=IF(ISERROR(VLOOKUP($B15,Gd.5U1!$B$14:$BC$153,26,F ALSE)),"",VLOOKUP($B15,Gd.5U1!$B$14:$BC$153,26,FAL SE))

You can do a couple of things to shorten the formula. You can use a
different error trap and replace FALSE with 0.

=IF(COUNTIF(Gd.5U1!$B$14:$B$153,$B15),VLOOKUP($B15 ,Gd.5U1!$B$14:$BC$153,26,0),"")

Note that COUNTIF evaluates numeric numbers and TEXT numbers to be equal.
If
you're lookup up text strings, no problem.

However, if you're looking up numbers and have 2 different data types
where
your lookup_value is a numeric number but the lookup_data is a TEXT
number
(or vice versa) then the COUNTIF error trap will allow the VLOOKUP to
execute and could return a result of #N/A.

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"Wilma" wrote in message
...
Can someone please explain the difference between Vlookup and
Match/Index.
The formula I am using is a vlookup (see below)--but I am wondering if
using
another formula (match/index?) would be better.

The formula works but if a column is inserted it would skew the result.
Any
advice?

=IF(ISERROR(VLOOKUP($B15,Gd.5U1!$B$14:$BC$153,26,F ALSE)),"",VLOOKUP($B15,Gd.5U1!$B$14:$BC$153,26,FAL SE))