VLOOKUP

[Pat_English7777]

VLOOKUP doesnt distinguish entries starting with R or S in a table

[#2]

@Pat_English7777 

Please provide detailed information, preferably attaching a sample workbook demonstrating the problem.

[#3]

@Pat_English7777 

It works in this example, to distinguish entries with R or S. Note: the VLOOKUP is in the green background cell. 

So as @Hans Vogelaar asks, please give some more details on the full situation you have where VLOOKUP is NOT working as expected. I will hazard the guess that it's not VLOOKUP that is at fault, but rather something else is going on.

[#4]

@mathetes 

I will reconstruct the worksheet and get back to you if the problem endures.

Thank you.

[#5]

That sounds fine. By the way, it just occurred to me that what might be happening is a leading (and invisible) space either in the fields in the table or in the reference being used. Leading spaces often plague lookup and match formulas because we humans typically don't see them, but so far as Excel is concerned, " Rwhatever" isn't at all the same as "RWhatever"