thanks mangesh - but a few issues
1. with vlookup(match("andrew",A1:E1,0),A7:B11,2) it works, but if
there is no "andrew" in the cells A1:E1 i get in B2 N/A. How can I
change it to have b2 a blank if there is no "andrew"

2. with the use of vba i wrote

if range("a1") = "andrew" then range("b2") = "black"
if range("a2") = "john" then range("b2") = "white"
end if

that is all I wrote and it did not work
what do I need to write before / after the above

(ps. any good book on vba)

andrewm


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