What are the green arrows in the top left corner of each cell?

[Guest]

I'm trying to do a vlookup on a list of accounts. The cells that have green
arrows in the top left corner give me no result. I think it has to do with
formating but I haven't been able to figure it out.

 

[Guest]

Sounds like some may be stored as text and some as numbers, use the same for
all so you are comparing apples to apples.

 

[Peo Sjoblom]

Most likely number formatted as text, format a cell as number or general,
copy it, select the text numbers and do edit>paste special and select add

 

[Guest]

I tried switching both to text and both to number formats, but it's still not
giving me a result. The green arrows are still there for only some the
accounts.

This is the vlookup formula I'm using. Do you know if there is anything
that I could add to the formula to pick up other accounts?

=VLOOKUP(accounts!A2,desc!$A$1:$B$318,2,FALSE)

 

[Rick Rothstein \(MVP - VB\)]

I'm trying to do a vlookup on a list of accounts. The cells that have

green
arrows in the top left corner give me no result. I think it has to do
with
formating but I haven't been able to figure it out.

In general, those green "arrows" indicate an "error" condition exists. Error
is kind of a catch-all term. The items that will cause the green arrows to
appear are defined by the check list found by clicking Tools/Options on
Excel's menu bar and selecting the Error Checking tab on the dialog box that
appears... the checked items under the rules section cause the green arrow
to appear when they occur. Green, by the way, is the default color... you
can change if via the Error Indicator Color drop down on that same dialog
panel.

 

[Peo Sjoblom]

You can't just switch format if they are seen as text, you need to
recalculate them, see my solution and if that does not work you have
invisible spaces or html characters