Can anyone explain Excel/lookups in nice simple english for me?

[Katymac]

AT least I think that is what I want to do

I have a list of numbers & next to each number is a statement

I want to type the numbers in a list on another page & have the statement magically appear in the right colour/font etc

What chance do I have?

I love lookups! They are the fabbiest excel things ever (how sad). Yes, you can do that though the part about the right/colour is all about how you format. You can use conditional formatting depending on the results but this is separate from the vlookup formula and is only applied to the cells with the results in it.

If you've got a list going down the way you would use vlookup - across is hlookup.

If you're using numbers like 1, 2, 3, etc. you would use vlookup(A1, c1:d4, 2, false), otherwise vlookup(A1, c1:d4, 2, true) if it was the closest match you needed.

There's loads of online help to get you started as well.

so I have

1.11 The cat sat on the Mat
1.12 She sells seashells

etc

So I use Vlookup?

I am confused by

Lookup Value
Table array
Col index Number
Range look up

Is range lookup my list?

& lookup value where I will type in my number?

Help?

Can anyone clarify what each of the terms means?

Panic over - I worked it all out