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Excel Formulas Academy · Lesson

Searching Across Rows With HLOOKUP

Look up values along a row instead of down a column.

Meet HLOOKUP

HLOOKUP is the horizontal twin of VLOOKUP. The H stands for Horizontal: instead of searching down a column, it searches across the top row of a table, then returns a value from further down the same column.

Use HLOOKUP when your data is laid out sideways, with labels along a row instead of down a column.

=HLOOKUP(value, table, row_index_num, [range_lookup])

The Four Arguments

HLOOKUP mirrors VLOOKUP, with one key change. Its arguments are:

  • lookup_value - what you search for in the top row
  • table_array - the range of cells
  • row_index_num - which row to return from (counted from the top)
  • [range_lookup] - TRUE for approximate, FALSE for exact

Notice the third argument is now a row index, not a column index, because the data runs down.

=HLOOKUP(lookup_value, table_array, row_index_num, FALSE)

All lessons in this course

  1. How VLOOKUP Searches a Table
  2. Exact vs Approximate Match
  3. Searching Across Rows With HLOOKUP
  4. Why VLOOKUP Sometimes Fails
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