Introduction

Apart from VLOOKUP, INDEX and MATCH is the most widely used tool in Excel for performing lookups. The INDEX and MATCH combo is potent and flexible, and you'll see it used in all kinds of formulas, from basic to very advanced.

In Excel 2011 (Mac) choose Insert Name Define. In the Define Name dialog box type sHours into the Names in workbook box. In the Refers to: box type the formula =INDEX(Table,1,5) then click OK.

However, while VLOOKUP allows you to perform lookups with a single function, INDEX and MATCH requires two functions, one nested inside another. Many users find this confusing, because they aren't used to combining functions in Excel, so they avoid INDEX and MATCH. That's a shame. Combining functions is the key to more advanced formulas in Excel.

This article explains in simple terms how to use INDEX and MATCH together to perform lookups. It takes a step-by-step approach, first explaining INDEX, then MATCH, then showing you how to combine the two functions together to create a dynamic two-way lookup.

INDEX – get value at known position

The INDEX function in Excel is fantastically flexible and powerful, and you'll find it in a huge number of Excel formulas, especially advanced formulas. But what does INDEX actually do? In a nutshell, INDEX retrieves values at a given location in a list or table. For example, let's say you have a table of planets in our solar system (see below), and you want to get the name of the 4th planet, Mars, with a formula.

You can do it with this simple formula based on the INDEX function:

INDEX locates the 4th cell in B3:B11, B6, and returns the value at that address.

Video: How to look things up with INDEX

INDEX and 2D lookups

What if you want to get the diameter of Mars? In that case, we can give INDEX both a row number and a column number, and feed in a larger array (range) of data. The INDEX formula below uses the full range of data in B3:D11, with a row number of 4 and column number of 2:

How INDEX can be used to retrieve a value in a 2D table.

To summarize, INDEX gets a value at a specified location in a range of cells based on numeric position. When the range is one-dimensional, you only need to supply a row number. When the range is two-dimensional, you'll need to supply both the row and column number.

At this point, you may be thinking 'So what? How often do you actually know the position of something in a spreadsheet?'

Exactly right. We need a way to locate the position of things we're looking for.

Enter the MATCH function.

MATCH – find position in a list

The MATCH function is designed for one purpose: find the numeric position of an item in a list. For example, we can use MATCH to get the position of the word 'peach' in this list of fruits like this:

MATCH returns 3, since 'Peach' is the third item in the range. Notice MATCH is not case-sensitive.

MATCH doesn't care if the list is horizontal or vertical. If we arrange the list of fruits horizontally, we get the same result with this MATCH formula:

How to lookup partial string match in Excel?

For example, there is a range of data, and column E is the students’ name list, column F and G are the class and grade of the students, and column H is the ranking of the students’ scores, now you have a given name “Jack” which is the partial string of “Jacky”, how can you quickly lookup partial string match and return the ranking of the “Jacky” as below screenshot shown.

VLOOKUP partial string match in Excel

Here I have some formulas to help you lookup partial string match in Excel.

1. Select a blank cell to enter the partial string that you want to look up. See screenshot:

2. Select another cell which you will place the look up value at, and enter this formula =VLOOKUP($K$1&'*',$E$1:$H$14,4,FALSE), press Enter key to get to value. See screenshot:

Best viewer for mac second life. I use the shortcut for the most part, Ctrl+.I then use Gimp to tweak colors and levels, etc.Posted by:Kindred Wanderer. I used and loved the old Niran's viewer, so much i was accused of so many things. However, my machine was at the low end of the min specs, and it was terribly laggy for me. Im so in with clara. I only ever used it for taking pics with the advanced graphics options, and it was really a labor of love.As for my usual work flow in V3:Under advanced settings, I enable the following:'High-res snapshot'Quiet Snapshot to disk'High-res snapshots captures the images at double your native resolution (this will cause a delay of a second or two when snapping), and quiet to disk makes it so others can't hear your camera's shutter audio (quite useful for a shutterbug).Also, I hardly ever use the snapshot panel.

Tip:

1. In the formula, K1 is the cell containing the partial string, E1:H14 is the data range, 4 indicates to lookup value in the Forth column of the range. You can change them as you need.

2. If you just want to find which name is partial match the given name, you also can use this formula =INDEX($E$2:$E$14,MATCH($K$1&'*',E2:E14,0)). (E2:E14 is the column list you want to lookup from, k1 is the given name, you can change as you need.)

• Reuse: Quickly insert complex formulas, charts and anything that you have used before; Encrypt Cells with password; Create Mailing List and send emails..
• Super Formula Bar (easily edit multiple lines of text and formula); Reading Layout (easily read and edit large numbers of cells); Paste to Filtered Range..
• Merge Cells/Rows/Columns without losing Data; Split Cells Content; Combine Duplicate Rows/Columns.. Prevent Duplicate Cells; Compare Ranges..
• Select Duplicate or Unique Rows; Select Blank Rows (all cells are empty); Super Find and Fuzzy Find in Many Workbooks; Random Select..
• Exact Copy Multiple Cells without changing formula reference; Auto Create References to Multiple Sheets; Insert Bullets, Check Boxes and more..
• Extract Text, Add Text, Remove by Position, Remove Space; Create and Print Paging Subtotals; Convert Between Cells Content and Comments..
• Super Filter (save and apply filter schemes to other sheets); Advanced Sort by month/week/day, frequency and more; Special Filter by bold, italic..
• Combine Workbooks and WorkSheets; Merge Tables based on key columns; Split Data into Multiple Sheets; Batch Convert xls, xlsx and PDF..
• More than 300 powerful features. Supports Office/Excel 2007-2019 and 365. Supports all languages. Easy deploying in your enterprise or organization. Full features 30-day free trial. 60-day money back guarantee.

• Enable tabbed editing and reading in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, Access, Visio and Project.
• Open and create multiple documents in new tabs of the same window, rather than in new windows.
• Increases your productivity by 50%, and reduces hundreds of mouse clicks for you every day!

• To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
  I can't thank you enough, the =INDEX($E$2:$E$14,MATCH($K$1&'*',E2:E14,0)) is a real lifesaver
• To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
  I wish you would show us where to find it in Kutools. Great tool when you can find what you need

  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Hi, KHill, so far, there is no a featrue in Kutools for Excel can lookup partial match, but soon, we will release some new features about vlook in new version of Kutools, you can try them then.