VLOOKUP Tutorial: Updating prices in a master price list

The Problem: It's taking way too long to find and update prices in a master price list

Suppose that you maintain an Excel workbook with over 10,000 prices for products that your company sells. Parts are arranged in sections by category. You have part numbers in column A, prices in column B, and other information in column C. Now, imagine that your manager just gave you a worksheet with updates for 475 of the items in your list.

Attempt 1: Use CTRL + F to update the list

 You decide to copy the price update to a blank section of your master price list.

From this point, you start trying to find each item from the new list in the old list. Since the items in the old list are not sorted and cannot easily be sorted across the various sections of the price list, you decide to use the Find command to make the process easier.

Here is your first attempt:

1. Select the first part number from the new list in cell G3
2. Press Ctrl+C to copy this item to the clipboard
3. Select all of column A by clicking on the A heading
4. Press Ctrl+F to open the Find dialog
5. Press Ctrl+V to paste the part number into the Find dialog
6. Click the Find button

You are now at row 2063 and fairly proud that you didn't have to click PgDn one hundred times to get here. Unfortunately, you've forgotten the new price so you have to start over. 

Watch me try using CTRL + F to update the list:

Attempt 2: Use Find All to update the list

You try jotting the new price on a sheet of scrap paper, but then you think there might be a faster way. After some experimenting, you end up with this awesome set of steps:

1. Select the next part number from the new list (you are down to G9) by now.
2. Press Ctrl+C to copy that cell to the clipboard
3. Press Ctrl+A twice to select all cells in the worksheet
4. Press Ctrl+F to open the Find dialog
5. Press Ctrl+V to paste the part number in the Find dialog
6. Press Alt+A to Find All! This brings up a list of both the item in the original list and the item in the new list
7. Switch between the two cells using the up and down arrow keys.
8. At this point, it is probably easier to switch to the mouse. Click on the new price. Right-click and choose Copy. Click on the old price. Right-click and choose paste.
9. You can return to the right section of the new price list using the hyperlinks in the still-open Find dialog.

Watch me using Find All to update the list: 

Even with this improved set of steps, it is taking almost 1 minute per item. You do some quick math and realize that 450 items are going to require 8 mind-numbing hours. Your first thought might be, "There has to be a better way, but what is it?"

  

The Solution: Speed up the process with VLOOKUP 

I began working as a financial analyst in 1989. I've learned that data is rarely perfect.

This price list workbook is a case in point. It has been handed down in your department for the last dozen years. It was set up by some guy named Bob who no longer works here. In the workbook, there are lots of things that would have made life easier.

For example, it would have been nice if:

• The category information was in another column, so you could easily sort the list by part number and then back by category.
• The list of new prices included all the items where the price did not change, and if it was in the exact same order as your list, so you could copy and paste huge ranges of prices.
• Your manager would have just done this himself.

But, in real life, data is not perfect. When data is not perfect, knowing an Excel function called VLOOKUP can save the day. 

VLOOKUP explained

VLOOKUP stands for "Vertical Lookup." The vertical means that your list of new prices is going down the spreadsheet instead of across. (If you are wondering, there is an HLOOKUP for when your lookup table is going across.)

The tooltip for VLOOKUP says you need:

=VLOOKUP(lookup_value,table_array,col_index_number,[range_lookup])

• Lookup_value is the part number that you are looking up. To find a new price for the part number in A2, you are looking for A2. =VLOOKUP(A2,
• Table_array is the lookup table. The data that you are looking to match must be in the first column of the lookup table. That works in this case, because part number is in column G and new price is in column H. If those had been reversed, you would copy the prices so they are to the right of the part numbers. When you type the address of the table, make sure to use dollar signs so that the table reference doesn't change as you copy the formula down your worksheet. Instead of G3:H477, use $G$3:$H$477. Those dollar signs tell Excel to not lower the range as the formula gets copied down.=VLOOKUP(A2,$G$3:$H$477,
• Col_index_number tells Excel which column you want to return from the lookup table. In this case, you only have two columns. Part number is in the first column of the lookup table. New Price is in the second column of the lookup table. Since you want to return New Price, use 2 for the column.=VLOOKUP(A2,$G$3:$H$477,2
• Range_lookup - the square brackets in the tooltip say that this argument is optional, but in real life it is not optional! You should always put False as the fourth argument. If you leave the argument off, you are allowing Excel to find close matches. Close matches are never appropriate when you are doing the type of lookup described in this situation. =VLOOKUP(A2,$G$3:$H$477,2,False)

Add a new column to your price list called New Price. Enter =VLOOKUP(A2,$G$3:$H$477,2,False) in cell C5. You get the new price. This looks promising!  

Your first VLOOKUP returns the new price

Select the formula in C5 and double-click the fill handle to copy the formula down. (The fill handle is the square dot in the bottom right corner of the selected cell.) Because of the blank cells between categories, the fill handle will only copy the formula down to the end of the first category. Already, you can see that something seems to be wrong.  

 

Uh-oh! #N/A errors are usually bad, but maybe not in this case 

Techniques for dealing with inevitable #N/A errors

A few of the VLOOKUP formulas are returning numbers. Many more are returning the #N/A error. When you do a VLOOKUP, the #N/A error means that the value you are looking up is not found in the lookup table. In this case, this is to be expected, since only 475 of the 10,000 prices are being updated.

Since you are expecting the #N/A errors, you can use the IFERROR function (available in Excel 2007 or later) to replace the #N/A with something else. You might put a space. You might put a zero. Or...in this case, if you don't have a new price, then the old price is still valid, so you could put the old price!

Edit the original formula in C5. Here are the three formulas you could use:

• To show a blank, use =IFERROR(VLOOKUP(A5,$G$3:$H$477,2,FALSE),"")
• To show a zero, use =IFERROR(VLOOKUP(A5,$G$3:$H$477,2,FALSE),0)
• To use the old price, use =IFERROR(VLOOKUP(A5,$G$3:$H$477,2,FALSE),B5)

Choose a formula and copy it down. Your new column shows the new price if there is one, and the old price if there isn't one.  

 

 =IFERROR() to the rescue

In this video, see how I define VLOOKUP and explain the VLOOKUP formula, and get rid of #N/A: 

Use conditional formatting to highlight new prices

When I look at the two columns of data, it is hard to see which prices changed and which did not. You can use conditional formatting to highlight which items changed.

1. Select C5:C18. Although you are formatting a large range of cells, you need to do the following steps thinking only about the first cell in the range, C5.
2. Select Home, Conditional Formatting, New Rule.
3. Choose Use a Formula to Determine Which Cells to Format
4. In the rule description, type a formula of =C5<>B5
5. Click the Format button. Choose a red font. The dialog will look like Figure 4.
6. Click OK to apply the conditional format.

 

Any prices that have changed will appear in red.

Pain is relative: Copy your VLOOKUP formula to other categories

So far, you've solved the problem for a very small category of the master price list. You need to copy the C5 cell to the first row of the next category and use the fill handle to fill down. With 10 more categories, you will repeat this process several times and it might take 5 minutes to perform the copy operation repeatedly. Maybe it would be easier to copy all the way down to row 10000 and then manually clear out the blank rows between the categories. Someday you should reorganize the spreadsheet, but for today, you've save a lot of time. 

 

Don't forget: Change those formulas to values before you delete the new price range

At this point, you decide you don't need the temporary range over in G:H any more. Don't delete it yet! Those VLOOKUP formulas back in column C are still using that range. You need to convert the formulas to values.

1. Select all of column C
2. Right-click and choose Copy
3. Right-click and choose the 123 icon for Paste Values 

I'm Speechless

If you've followed along here, you might not know what to say. You might be upset that you wasted so much time using the Find method and wasted one day of your life every month for the last 18 months. You might be angry that you never knew about VLOOKUP before. You might be giddy that you solved this problem in 20 minutes instead of 8 hours. (And...once you gain more confidence with VLOOKUP, you'll be able to solve the problem faster and faster each month.) You might be plotting what you can do with all the time you just got back today ("long lunch!").

VLOOKUP solved this cool problem and can solve many more problems.

When you were manually finding the items, it was natural to start with the shorter list of 475 items with the intent to work through it. Since VLOOKUP is incredibly fast, you can throw the VLOOKUP at all 10,000 items and let the IFERROR clean up the unfound entries.

Many people get discouraged when they encounter the #N/A errors from VLOOKUP. Understand that some #N/A are to be expected. It is part of the messiness of data in real life. 

What to do with your free time–perform a quick quality-check

 Have you done this process manually in the past? Did the part numbers in the new price list match up correctly? As a human, you would recognize "A-1234" and "A1234" to likely be the same item, but VLOOKUP will not understand this. Take an extra five minutes to make sure that all of the items in your new price list are found in the original table:

1. Add a column heading in I2 called "Is it OK?"
2. The formula in I3 is =VLOOKUP(I3,A:A,1,False). This formula will look for the part number from I3 over in column A. If it is found, it will return the first column of the lookup table, which is the part number from column A. If it is not found, it will return #N/A.
3. Copy that formula down by double-clicking the fill handle.
4. Sort descending by column I. Select one cell such as I2 and click the ZA button on the data tab. If there are any #N/A values that come to the top of the list, it means that the part number in I is not found in column A.
5. Do some research on these. Are they mis-typed? Are they new? 

This is just one example of the many ways to use VLOOKUP. Check out vlookupweek.wordpress.com for many additional articles on other ways to use VLOOKUP.

Format and customize Excel 2013 charts quickly with the new Formatting Task pane

The new Excel offers a rich set of charting capabilities that make creating and customizing charts simpler and more intuitive. One part of the fluid new experience is the Formatting Task pane.  

Until now, precise adjustments to chart elements were made in the Format dialog box. The box sometimes obscured a portion of the chart, changes entered in the box were not visible until you closed it, and you had to select the exact element on the chart in order to see the options that were the best fit for the job.

In the new Excel, the Format dialog box is replaced by the Formatting Task pane. The pane aligns neatly with the right or left side of the screen, so it's less likely to obscure the chart, and changes happen in real time, so you can immediately see how your choices affect the chart. The Formatting Task pane also offers an element selector so you can jump quickly between different elements without having to select one to modify.

The new Formatting Task pane is the single source for formatting--all of the different styling options are consolidated in one place. With this single task pane, you can modify not only charts, but also shapes and text in Excel.

Using the Formatting Task pane

The fastest way to open the Formatting Task pane is to double-click a chart element. You can also use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+1 while a chart element is selected. There are two other ways to open the task pane:

The first way: On a chart, select an element. On the Ribbon, select the Chart Tools Format tab, then click Format Selection.

The second way: On a chart, select an element. Right-click, then select Format <element> where <element> is the axis, series, legend, title, or area that was selected.

Once open, the Formatting Task pane remains available until you close it. Since it always stays on the right or left side of the screen, the pane remains unobtrusive as you concentrate on other tasks. The options in the Formatting Task pane will change based on which element is currently selected. For example, if you select a legend, the Formatting Task pane offers layout, fill, and effect options uniquely tailored to the legend element. With this more intuitive experience, you can feel free to leave the Formatting Task pane open while you format different elements of your chart.

Selecting chart elements in the Formatting Task pane

The element selector in the Formatting Task pane allows you to jump quickly between different elements without selecting them in the chart itself. Since some chart elements are small and perhaps difficult to select, the element selector is a great alternative to the "hunt and peck" approach.

The element selector is in the top left of the Formatting Task pane. The selected element is displayed, along with a down arrow. Clicking the down arrow opens a dropdown menu that shows all elements of the selected chart. When you choose an element from this menu, the Formatting Task pane displays options uniquely tailored to this element, and it also selects this element in the chart.

You can also find the element selector on the Ribbon on the Chart Tools Format tab.

Chart options in the Formatting Task pane

Chart options in the Formatting Task pane are in two categories: Size & Properties and element-specific.

Size & Properties option

Size & Properties deals with sizing, alignment, and miscellaneous properties such as alt text and locks.

The Chart Area element is unique in that its Size & Properties options affect the chart as a whole. Size, scale, and aspect ratio can be adjusted only on the Chart Area element, from which all other chart elements derive their inherent size and scale. The Chart Area element also controls the alt text of the chart, whether the chart moves and/or sizes with its underlying cells, and whether the chart is printable and locked.

Other chart elements can adjust their alignment from the Size & Properties options, which dictate vertical alignment, text direction and angle, and margins.

Element-specific options

There are unique, element-specific options for axis, legends, and series:

Axis Options. Axis options allows you to adjust the axis bounds and units, the placement and interval of its labels, and other options including tick marks and number format.

Legend Options. Legend options allows you to specify the position of the legend, and whether or not it overlaps the chart.

Series Options. Series options allows you to specify whether the series should be plotted on the primary or secondary axis, the spacing and width of the columns on a bar or column chart, and the angle and explosion (separation) of the slices of a pie chart.

Line, fill, and effect options in the Formatting Task pane

In addition to chart options, the Formatting Task pane allows you to fine-tune the visuals of each chart element by offering a multitude of line, fill, and effect styles. These styling options are available for shapes as well.

Line options

Line options allow you to adjust the styling of the lines and borders of each chart element. There are two line types: solid and gradient. A solid line uses one color throughout, while a gradient line changes smoothly from one color to another along its path. Regardless of the line type you choose, you can adjust a line's thickness, transparency, dash type, and endpoint settings.

Fill options

Fill options allow you to choose how the inner portion of each chart element is filled. There are four fill types: solid, gradient, pattern, and picture. A solid fill uses only one color, while a gradient fill smoothly blends multiple colors along its filled region. A pattern fill tiles the inner fill region with preset imprints such as crosshatches and tiles, and a picture fill uses preset textures or a picture that you specify.

Please note that certain chart elements, such as the series of a Line Chart, do not have an inner fill region to color or tile. Fill options are disabled for these chart elements.

Effect options

Effect options offer a powerful set of effects that add visual impact to your charts. Effects include shadows, glows, soft edges, and 3-D formatting.

Shadow. This effect adds a shadow either outside or inside the chart element.

3-D Formatting. This effect adds a bevel to the chart element to give it a 3-dimensional relief.

Text options in the Formatting Task pane

In addition to modifying the look and feel of charts and shapes, you can also style text inside these objects.

Text options are in the top right of the Formatting Task pane. Clicking Text Options toggles the task pane into text styling mode. You can toggle back to the former chart and shape styling mode at any time by clicking the element selector's title.

In text styling mode, you can modify the look and feel of your text using the same line, fill, and effect options that are available for charts and shapes.

Understanding Word Templates

by Susan Daffron

Every document has a template attached to it. If you don't specifically select one, it starts off using the Normal template. Every template has styles stored in them, whether you use them or not. Styles you create can also be stored in the template as well. The template also stores page layout information and text for a certain type of document.

Unlike some desktop publishing applications, in Word, if you change a template, your changes are not reflected in old documents that use the template, unless you reapply the new version of the template to the document. Even if you have a lot of documents that are all based on the same template, they may not look anything like one another. Although the document is based on a certain template, the document matches the template as it was at the time the document was created, which may not be what the template looks like now. It's important to realize that if you change the template and then create new documents, older documents won't necessarily match the new documents.

 

Understand How Templates Work

To understand how templates work, you need to understand where they fall in the Word architecture. If you don't understand Word's view of the document world, it's easy to lose track of where your settings are stored.

 

According to Microsoft, Word has a "layered" architecture. The document is the top layer. Underneath it is the Word application itself. Settings you add to the top layer supersedes the settings below. Here's a list of the layers from the bottom to the top:

• Word: The Word application itself is the bottom layer. It contains all the built-in commands and functions. The program controls basic function such as right-justifying a paragraph.
• Global: The next layer is the Global layer. This layer includes global templates, add-ins, and the Normal template. This layer also includes macros, AutoText entries, and toolbars. For example, if you add a macro to the Normal template that has the same name as a built-in Word command, Word runs your command instead of the built-in one.
• Custom Templates: Your templates live above the Global layer. So the styles and other settings you put in your templates override the settings stored in the Normal and global templates. For example, if you set up style called Heading 1, your settings override the Heading 1 style in the Normal template.
• Document: The top layer is the document itself. The settings you add to the document override the settings in any templates. If you reformat a Heading 1 paragraph by adding local formatting, those settings override the settings stored in the Heading 1 style in either the Normal template or your own templates.

If you don't create your own templates or styles, Word gets all its document formatting information from the document (the top layer). Any other default settings come from the Normal template or the built-in Word settings.

 

If you have set up your own styles in a template, Word looks for local formatting settings in the document, then looks at the Custom Template layer for your style settings. Then it looks at the Global layer and finally the Word layer to find other settings to construct the document.

Create New Templates

If you create a lot of documents, it makes sense to start creating templates that contain styles geared toward particular types of document. Although many people just add more and more styles to the Normal template, doing this can get very confusing very quickly. When you set up templates for specific document types, you don't have to scroll through thousands of irrelevant styles to find the one you need.

 

You can create a template in two ways. You can create a new file with a .dot extension or base it on an existing file and saving it with a .dot extension. To create a template from scratch, choose File, New and change the radio button in the Create New box from Document to Template. You can base the new template on an existing template or on a Blank Document (the Normal template). You add styles, formatting, macros, toolbars, and text just as you would to any other document. Then you save the file as a template with a *.dot file extension.

 

To save a file as a template. Open it and choose File, Save As. Change the Save As Type drop down-box to Document Template (*.DOT). When you switch the file type to a template, Word automatically switches to its default template directory. If you save the file there, it will be available in the list the next time you do a File, New.

 

When you create a template from an existing document, Word leaves the text in there too. So you may want to delete the text that is specific to the original document, so that just the styles and layout information remain.

Attach Templates

At some point, you may want to reformat the styles in a existing documents to styles you've created in a new template. This process is known as "attaching" a template to a document.

To attach a template, you select File, Templates and add a check mark to the Automatically Update Document Styles option. When you click the OK button, Word overwrites the style formatting of styles in the document that have the same name as the styles in the new template you're attaching. All the matching styles change to the new formatting. Any new styles in the new template are added to the style list. Text formatted with styles from the old template that don't match styles in the new template retain the old style. If you want to make sure that everything is reformatted to the new settings, make sure all the text is formatted with style names that match across the two templates.

 

If you want to retain certain styles from the old template, make sure you rename any matching styles you want to preserve. Choose Format, Style, click Modify, and type a new name.

 

Attaching a template only changes the styles in a document; it does not change other elements such as margins, page size, headers, or footers. Because margins, headers, footers and so on are document-level settings they supersede template-level settings. When you attach a new template, because the page settings are stored at the document level, Word can't overwrite them with settings stored at the template level.

 

Because document settings cannot be overridden, in this situation you must bring the document you want to change into the template. This way, you end up using the document settings stored in the template. You create a new document based on your template and then choose File, Insert. The new document contains the document-level page elements as well as the styles stored in the template.

Copy Styles Between Templates

You can copy styles from existing documents or templates to other documents or templates. To copy styles from one document or template to another:

1. Choose File, Templates.
3. Click Organizer and select the Styles tab.
5. You may need to close the document or template on one side or the other and open the desired document or template. Be sure to check that the names are correct before you start copying.
7. Choose a style from the Styles in box. When you click a style name, you see a description.
8. Click the Copy button. The styles are copied to the document or template.

Copying styles can be useful if you set up a nifty new style, but forgot to add it to the template. Just open the document with the style and copy it to the desired template.

Excel Array Formulas

What are Array Formulas?

Excel Array formulas are very powerful and useful formulas that allow more complex calculations than standard formulas. The "Help" in Excel defines them as below:

"An array formula can perform multiple calculations and then return either a single result or multiple results. Array formulas act on two or more sets of values known as array arguments."

Array Formula Rules:

Before we show some examples of array formulas it is important to know 4 fundamental rules.

• Each argument within an array must have the same amount of rows and columns.
• You must enter an array by pushing Ctrl+Shift+Enter.
• You cannot add the {} (braces) that surround an array yourself, pushing Ctrl+Shift+Enter will do this for you.
• You cannot use an array formula on an entire column.

Pet Shop Example:

Suppose you have 5 Columns of data each with 200 rows.
Column A is used to keep track of the sex of each dog sold i.e. Male or Female
Column B is used to keep track of the breed of the dogs sold.
Column C is used to keep track of the age of the dogs sold.
Column D is used to keep track whether the dog is sterilized or not i.e. Yes or No
Column E is used to keep track of the cost of the dog sold.

• To count the number of male Poodles sold:
  =SUM(($A$2:$A$200="Male")*($B$2:$B$200="Poodle"))
• To count the number of male Poodles sold over 3 years old:
  =SUM(($A$2:$A$200="Male")*($B$2:$B$200="Poodle")*($C$2:$C$200>2))
• To get the total cost of male Spaniels sold:
  =SUM(IF($A$2:$A$200="Male",IF($B$2:$B$200="Spaniel",$E$2:$E$200,0),0))
• To find out the average age of male dogs sold:
  =AVERAGE(IF($A$2:$A$200="Male",$C$2:$C$200))
• To find out the average cost of male dogs sold over 2 years old:
  =AVERAGE(IF($A$2:$A$200="Male",IF($C$2:$C$200>2,$E$2:$E$200)))
• To find out the Minimum age of dogs sold that are sterilized:
  =MIN(IF($D$2:$D$200="Yes",$C$2:$C$200))

All the above formulas must be entered with Ctrl+Shift+Enter

TIP: If you are having problems writing an array formula to sum your totals then use the Conditional sum wizard, Tool>Wizard>Conditional sum. If you don't see it then you will need to add it via Tools>Add-ins>Conditional sum wizard.

 

While using array formulas can be very handy they have one draw back and that is, too many of them within your workbook WILL slow down Excels recalculations. If you will need a lot of array formulas within the same workbook consider using, Pivot Tables the Database functions instead. These are ideal for extracting information from tables and databases.

Excel Autosum: sum up values in Excel automatically

Because adding numbers is probably the most common function that Excel is used for, Excel has a built-in Feature called AutoSum located on the Standard toolbar.  AutoSum is represented as the Greek Capital letter Sigma Σ.  You can use AutoSum to sum a range of cells.  A Range can be one single cell, or many cells.  You can sum cells in a contiguous (no gaps) range of cells, or a non-contiguous (cells not joined together) range.

 

To use AutoSum  you must click in the cell that you wish your result, or addition to appear in.  As a default, AutoSum looks up a column for figures immediately above it to add together.  This works great, unless it encounters a blank row or text.  If it does, then it stops at the last cell with a number in it.  If there are no numbers above it, AutoSum will automatically go to the left looking for numbers to add up, but will again stop at a blank column or text.   This is Excel's default, but you can easily change it.

 

The SUM Function is written as =SUM(number 1, number 2).  = is the trigger to Excel that a function or formula is following.  SUM is the name of the function and (number 1, number 2) are the arguments that the SUM function needs to work, or in our case the numbers it is to add up.  When you click the AutoSum icon, you will see the SUM function written in your cell, with a marquee (floating dotted line) around what the AutoSum intends to add up.  If the highlighted range is what you wanted to add up, click OK, if not then change the range you wish to add.

 

Following are three screen shots showing the AutoSum.

AutoSum automatically picks up the numbers above it

AutoSum automatically looks left for numbers if it encounters no numbers immediately above it, but numbers to the left.

AutoSum automatically stops when it encounters a blank line, or text in the middle of the range it is trying to add up.

Add Background Pictures To Excel 2007 Worksheets

Chart, numbers, worksheets … at a business presentation it can get rather monotonous looking at the same data sheets.  Here is a way to add background graphics to your Excel spreadsheets to spice up those meetings.

First, open the spreadsheet you want to add the background to.

On the Ribbon click on Page Layout and select background.

This pops up the Sheet Background screen where you can select the background image you want to use.  Once you have chosen your background click the Insert button.

Now you have a background to your spreadsheet.  You may have to adjust some of the fonts and colors depending upon the background image.

Editor's note: Might want to choose either a really dark or really light colored image.

This content was originally posted on http://officeresources.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Add Background Color To Word 2007 Documents

Instead of using the standard white background with Word documents, here is how to add some background color to spice up your documents.

Open your word document and choose Page Layout on the Ribbon, then select page color to select the background color you want. 

The nice thing about Word 2007 is you just need to hover the mouse over each color to see a preview of how it will look in the document.  Select the background color you want and you are done.

This content was originally posted on http://officeresources.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog