Your approach seems okay, but I think you have too many parentheses

=TEXT((VLOOKUP(......), "##.## N"))

Since this portion is enclosed in parentheses (VLOOKUP(......), "##.## N")
I think it is being treated as one argument, which you don't want.

Try:
=TEXT(VLOOKUP(custno1,rmicustorg,lur19),"##.#0
N")&"-"&Text(VLOOKUP(custno1,rmicustorg,lur19+1),"## .#0 W")

"reno" wrote:

looking up lat and longitude to assign to a customer. the lat/lons are oot
to 5 or 6 digits, the lat in one col and long in another adjacent

trying to show up in one cell with 2 decimel such north,south,east,west in
my case the lats are all n and long are all west whcih I want to concatenate,
such that the cell would look something like this 41.60 N - 87.71 W

This is my attempt which didn't work
=TEXT((VLOOKUP(custno1,rmicustorg,lur19),"##.#0
N"))&"-"&Text(VLOOKUP(custno1,rmicustorg,lur19+1),"## .#0 W"))

suggestions?? thanks