How to Use VLOOKUP to Return Multiple Columns in Google Sheets

VLOOKUP is a powerful function in Google Sheets that allows you to look for a specific value in one column and return a corresponding value from another column. However, VLOOKUP is designed to return only one corresponding value, not multiple columns. To return multiple columns, you can use a combination of the VLOOKUP function and the curly braces {} to create an array formula.

Here are the instructions on how to use VLOOKUP to return multiple columns in Google Sheets:

1. Open your Google Sheet document with the data you want to analyze.
2. Identify the columns you want to return and the column that contains the lookup value.
3. Click on the cell where you want the results to be displayed.
4. Type the following formula replacing the parameters with your specific values:

={VLOOKUP(lookup_value, range, column_index1, false), VLOOKUP(lookup_value, range, column_index2, false), ...}

• lookup_value: The value you want to search for in the first column of the range.
• range: The range of cells where the lookup_value is located and the columns you want to return.
• column_index1, column_index2, ...: The column numbers within the range that you want to return.
• false: This parameter tells the VLOOKUP function to return an exact match for the lookup_value.

5. Press Enter to apply the formula and get the results.

Example

Let's say you have the following data in your Google Sheet:

A      | B        | C       | D
-----------------------------------
ID     | Name     | Country | Age
1      | John Doe | USA     | 30
2      | Jane Doe | UK      | 25
3      | Jim Smith| Canada  | 40

You want to use VLOOKUP to return the "Name" and "Country" columns based on the "ID" column. In this case, the formula would be:

={VLOOKUP(1, A2:D4, 2, false), VLOOKUP(1, A2:D4, 3, false)}

This formula will return "John Doe" and "USA" in two adjacent cells. If you want to change the "ID" to lookup a different person, simply replace the "1" in the formula with the desired ID.