In the example, we need to map five text values (statuses) to numeric status codes as follows: Since there is no way to derive the output (i.e. it’s arbitrary), we need to do some kind of lookup. The VLOOKUP function provides an easy way to do this. In the example shown, the formula in F8 is: Although in this case we are mapping text values to numeric outputs, the same formula can handle text to text, or numbers to text.
Dave Bruns
Hi - I’m Dave Bruns, and I run Exceljet with my wife, Lisa. Our goal is to help you work faster in Excel. We create short videos, and clear examples of formulas, functions, pivot tables, conditional formatting, and charts.
