An example using VLOOKUP ..

Assume you have set up a reference table

In Sheet1, in A1:B4
-------------
ABC 1
CDF 2
DFE 3
FEG 4

then, if you have

In Sheet2
---------
the listing below in A1 downwards

CDF
DFE
FEG
ABC
CDF

you could put in B1: =VLOOKUP(A1,Sheet1!A:B,2,0)
and copy down

Col B will return the numbers associated with the names
(as per the reference table in Sheet1)

Or, perhaps better with an error trap included
put instead in B1:

=IF(ISNA(MATCH(A1,Sheet1!A:A,0)),"",VLOOKUP(A1,She et1!A:B,2,0))

Copy down

With the error trap, any unmatched names in col A
will now return blanks: "", instead of #NAs
--
Rgds
Max
xl 97
---
GMT+8, 1° 22' N 103° 45' E
xdemechanik <atyahoo<dotcom
----
Christopher Anderson wrote
in message ...
How would a lookup statement work in this situation. If I have a column
that
has various text strings in it (ex. ABC, CDF, DFE, FEG...) and I want to
assign a numeric value in a separate column to all ABC's, CDF's, DFE's,
etc.
I tried this with a nested if statement but it would not allow me to do
more
than 8 nested if statements. I tried a lookup function but I am not
familiar
enough with these to know if what I did was correct. What would you
suggest?
Perhaps give me an example of the syntax.

Thanks

Christopher