I’m having trouble with a VLOOKUP function in Google Sheets that should be working but isn’t returning any results. I have two sheets with data that I need to match up. Both the lookup column and the search value are formatted as plain text so formatting shouldn’t be causing problems.
When I manually search for the value “C186” using Ctrl+F, I can see it appears exactly twice in my data which confirms the values exist and match perfectly. The lookup range includes the correct columns and I’ve double checked that my column index number is right.
I’ve tried refreshing the sheet and even copying the values to a new location but the VLOOKUP still returns an error or blank result. Has anyone encountered this issue before? I’m wondering if there might be hidden characters or some other formatting problem I’m not seeing that could cause VLOOKUP to fail even when the data appears to match visually.
make sure u set ur VLOOKUP to exact match by adding FALSE at the end - dont leave it blank. sometimes google sheets defaults to approximate match, which messes things up even when ur data looks good. also try highlighting those cells to check for hidden spaces, it has hapened to me too often.
I encountered a similar issue with VLOOKUP in Google Sheets as well. In my case, hidden characters were indeed the culprit. Although both the lookup and search values seemed to match visually, they contained invisible characters, leading to mismatches. I recommend using the TRIM function to eliminate any leading or trailing spaces from your data. Additionally, consider using the CLEAN function to remove any non-printable characters. After cleaning the data, retry your VLOOKUP and it should yield the expected results.
It seems like your lookup range may not include all the necessary data. I faced a similar situation where my VLOOKUP was limited to A:D, but the corresponding value was located in column E. Remember that while Ctrl+F scans the entire sheet, VLOOKUP restricts its search to the defined range. Also, ensure that your lookup column is the first column in that range, as VLOOKUP doesn’t search to the left. It might help to initially broaden your range to capture all relevant data, then narrow it down once you identify the missing information.