Matrix question

[Guest]

Hi everyone out there,
I have a spreadsheet (3 columns) and two of the columns have five possible
inputs.
"Column A" has the following possibilities - Always (A), Likely (B),
Possible (C), Unlikely (D) and Rare (E).
"Column B" has the following possibilities -Insignificant (1), Minor (2),
Moderate (3), Major (4) and Catastrophic (5).
I need "Column C" to return a value between 1 and 25 (with each number
corresponding to a particular combination of the input from columns A and B).
Have tried the IF formula, and it worked up to 7 values. Is there any other
way to have up to 25 combinations of outcomes from my two columns, or some
other formula that is more appropriate?
Thanks in advance for helping out.

 

[Ardus Petus]

Enter in C1:
=(CODE(A1)-65)*5 + B1

HTH

 

[Guest]

Hi Ardus Petus,
Thanks very much for your reply. Tried that and I get a #VALUE error in C1.
Can you explain what it is that your formula is trying to do and I will have
another try using my spreadsheet?
Any other suggestions?
Thanks again
Cootha

 

[Ardus Petus]

Are you sure A1 contains some value between "A" and "E",
and B1 contains a number between 1 and 5 ?

My formula takes the ascii code of the letter in A1 (65 for "A"), substracts
65 (result = 0 for "A) and finally adds the value found in B1

Works perfectly by me.

HTH

 

[Ardus Petus]

Oooops:
My formula takes the ascii code of the letter in A1 (65 for "A"), substracts
65 (result = 0 for "A) , multiplies that by 5 (result = 0 for "A", 5 for
"B", ..., 20 for "E") and finally adds the value found in B1

 

[Guest]

Hi Ardus,
Thanks again. Have tried this, and I get a result, but it is not exactly
what I was wanting. Maybe I did not make my request clear enough.
The matrix layout is as follows - with the abcde and 12345 as they appear in
the columns and with the corresponding values of 1-25 as they are reached by
using the matrix.

1 2 3 4 5
a 11 16 20 23 25
b 7 12 17 21 24
c 4 8 13 18 22
d 2 5 9 14 19
e 1 3 6 10 15
Hope this is clearer this time.

 

[Ardus Petus]

Assuming your column headers are in G1:K1, your row headers in F2:F6, and
your matrix data in G2:K6,

=INDEX(G2:K6,MATCH(A1,F2:F6,0),MATCH(B1,G1:K1,0))

HTH

 

[Guest]

Ardus,
Thankyou so much for this - it actually works and I am now clicking and
dragging to put this formula into all the parts of my spreadsheet that I need.
Thanks again
Cootha