Excel: VLOOKUP that returns true or false?

Question

In Excel we have the VLOOKUP function that looks for a value in a column in a table and then returns a value from a given column in that table if it finds something. If it doesn't, it produces an error.

Is there a function that just returns true or false depending on if the value was found in a column or not?

Answer 1

You could wrap your VLOOKUP() in an IFERROR()

Edit: before Excel 2007, use =IF(ISERROR()...)

Answer 2

We've always used an

if(iserror(vlookup,"n/a",vlookup))

Excel 2007 introduced IfError which allows you to do the vlookup and add output in case of error, but that doesn't help you with 2003...

Answer 3

You still have to wrap it in an ISERROR, but you could use MATCH() instead of VLOOKUP():

Returns the relative position of an item in an array that matches a specified value in a specified order. Use MATCH instead of one of the LOOKUP functions when you need the position of an item in a range instead of the item itself.

Here's a complete example, assuming you're looking for the word "key" in a range of cells:

=IF(ISERROR(MATCH("key",A5:A16,FALSE)),"missing","found")

The FALSE is necessary to force an exact match, otherwise it will look for the closest value.

Answer 4

Just use a COUNTIF ! Much faster to write and calculate than the other suggestions.
EDIT:
@Svish: I would rather say: if the value of B1 is found in column C, then A1 will be positive, otherwise it will be 0. Thats easily done with formula: =COUNTIF($C$1:$C$15,B1), which means: count the cells in range C1:C15 which are equal to B1.
You can combine COUNTIF with VLOOKUP and IF, and that's MUCH faster than using 2 lookups + ISNA.
IF(COUNTIF(..)>0,LOOKUP(..),"Not found")
A bit of Googling will bring you tons of examples.