formatting cell in vlookup

[Guest]

HELP

I have an excel spreadsheet that is e:mailed to me by my home office. I use the vlookup feature to find the value in cell b from the information in a

Proble

At times when the answer is N/A and I go to the e:mailed spreadsheet to see if that number is really not there, it is in the e;mailed spreadsheet. If I type over that number in the cell on the e;mailed spreadsheet, then the formula will work in the target spreadsheet, sometimes

This e;mailed spreadsheet is at a shared location on a servier, and the items I fix in the e;mailed spreadsheet on my desk top, are not available in any of the other desktops when using the same corrected e;mailed spreadsheet. They have the same problem with N/A but with non-corrected items, sometimes

The e;mailed spreadsheet is an entered information spreadsheet, not imported, exported or copied from any other sheet. The lady enters the information line-by-line. The cells are all formatted as General

We have tried copy, paste special, values only. No help

Any suggestions

Thanks a bunch

 

[Norman Harker]

Hi Kathy!

Have you checked whether the entries are numbers rather than text?

Use =ISTEXT(A1)
Returns TRUE if they are text.

To convert from text to numbers:
Copy an empty cell
Select the range of text numbers
Edit > Paste Special > Add > OK


--
Regards
Norman Harker MVP (Excel)
Sydney, Australia
(e-mail address removed)
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