I've got a range (A3:A10) that contains names, and I'd like to check if the contents of another cell (D1) matches one of the names in my list.

I've named the range A3:A10 'some_names', and I'd like an excel formula that will give me True/False or 1/0 depending on the contents.

9 Answers

=COUNTIF(some_names,D1)

should work (1 if the name is present - more if more than one instance).

1

My preferred answer (modified from Ian's) is:

=COUNTIF(some_names,D1)>0

which returns TRUE if D1 is found in the range some_names at least once, or FALSE otherwise.

(COUNTIF returns an integer of how many times the criterion is found in the range)

0

I know the OP specifically stated that the list came from a range of cells, but others might stumble upon this while looking for a specific range of values.

You can also look up on specific values, rather than a range using the MATCH function. This will give you the number where this matches (in this case, the second spot, so 2). It will return #N/A if there is no match.

=MATCH(4,{2,4,6,8},0)

You could also replace the first four with a cell. Put a 4 in cell A1 and type this into any other cell.

=MATCH(A1,{2,4,6,8},0)

6

If you want to turn the countif into some other output (like boolean) you could also do:

=IF(COUNTIF(some_names,D1)>0, TRUE, FALSE)

Enjoy!

1

For variety you can use MATCH, e.g.

=ISNUMBER(MATCH(D1,A3:A10,0))

there is a nifty little trick returning Boolean in case range some_names could be specified explicitly such in "purple","red","blue","green","orange":

=OR("Red"={"purple","red","blue","green","orange"})

Note this is NOT an array formula

1

You can nest --([range]=[cell]) in an IF, SUMIFS, or COUNTIFS argument. For example, IF(--($N$2:$N$23=D2),"in the list!","not in the list"). I believe this might use memory more efficiently.

Alternatively, you can wrap an ISERROR around a VLOOKUP, all wrapped around an IF statement. Like, IF( ISERROR ( VLOOKUP() ) , "not in the list" , "in the list!" ).

0

In situations like this, I only want to be alerted to possible errors, so I would solve the situation this way ...

=if(countif(some_names,D1)>0,"","MISSING")

Then I'd copy this formula from E1 to E100. If a value in the D column is not in the list, I'll get the message MISSING but if the value exists, I get an empty cell. That makes the missing values stand out much more.

0

Array Formula version (enter with Ctrl + Shift + Enter):

=OR(A3:A10=D1)

1

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