Forum Discussion
I can't sum the data returned by Vlookup directly
Hi there,
I successfully called multiple sets of data from other tables through the Vlookup function and fed them back into the main table. When I try to sum one of the columns of data at the end of the table, the sum function fails to do normal calculations.
I tried manually typing some of the data and using the AutoSum tool, which successfully got the desired result, but most of the data was still called up by the VLOOKUP function, and I didn't know what to do with both functions. Or if you have a better idea of summing, please point it out.
Here is the format of the VLOOKUP function I used: =VLOOKUP($B17,Table_2[#all],COLUMN('Table 2'!B3),)
Thanks for the help.
2 Replies
- I think I solved this problem in a clever way. The default format of numeric values called up via VLOOKUP appears to be text content and cannot participate in the summation formula. I multiplied the results of these functions by 1, converted them to numeric values, and finally completed the summation calculation.
No, if the source data is numeric, VLOOKUP will return numbers too.
I suspect that the table contains text values that look like numbers.
But you are correct, multiplying the result with 1 (or adding 0) will convert the formula result to numbers.
