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Two-column Lookup

This example teaches you how to perform a two-column lookup in Excel. See the example below. We want to look
up the salary of James Clark, not James Smith, not James Anderson.

1. To join strings, use the & operator.

2. The MATCH function returns the position of a value in a given range. Insert the MATCH function shown below.

3. Finish by pressing CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER.


Note: The formula bar indicates that this is an array formula by enclosing it in curly braces {}. Do not type these
yourself. They will disappear when you edit the formula.

Explanation: The range (array constant) A2:A8&B2:B8 is stored in Excel's memory, not in a range. The array
constant looks as follows:

{"JamesSmith";"JamesAnderson";"JamesClark";"JohnLewis";"JohnWalker";"MarkReed";"RichardLopez"}

This array constant is used as an argument for the MATCH function, giving a result of 3 (JamesClark found at
position 3).

4. Use this result and the INDEX function to return the 3rd value in the range C2:C8.

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