Using a formula, I replicate the appropriate name of one of the many
excel reference areas I have created. I would now like to use the name
I've generated in a VLOOKUP formula. However, the formatting is off
and I don't know how to fix it. The VLOOKUP formula does not like the
reference name to be in the text format and I'm not sure how to format
my generated reference name to get it to work. Any ideas?

Ex: Based on the position in the spreadsheet, I generate the name of
the area that has the data I need [ex: area1, area2, etc.]. I would
now like to use these generated names in a VLOOKUP formula [ex:
vlookup($d3,area1,2,false)] but the format of "area1" is tripping me up.

Try Tools - Options- Calculations --- Click on accept labels in formulas


"Heather" wrote:

Using a formula, I replicate the appropriate name of one of the many
excel reference areas I have created. I would now like to use the name
I've generated in a VLOOKUP formula. However, the formatting is off
and I don't know how to fix it. The VLOOKUP formula does not like the
reference name to be in the text format and I'm not sure how to format
my generated reference name to get it to work. Any ideas?

Ex: Based on the position in the spreadsheet, I generate the name of
the area that has the data I need [ex: area1, area2, etc.]. I would
now like to use these generated names in a VLOOKUP formula [ex:
vlookup($d3,area1,2,false)] but the format of "area1" is tripping me up.