How to use VLOOKUP (and the FALSE you must not forget)
✓ Verified in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3Look up a value in a table and return a matching value from another column — the workhorse lookup.
The formula
| App | Formula | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Excel | =VLOOKUP(D2,A2:B10,2,FALSE) | lookup value, table, column number to return, FALSE. Always pass FALSE for an exact match. |
| Google Sheets | =VLOOKUP(D2,A2:B10,2,FALSE) | Identical. |
| LibreOffice Calc | =VLOOKUP(D2,A2:B10,2,FALSE) | Identical. |
How it works
VLOOKUP takes four things: the value to find (D2 = "banana"), the table to search (A2:B4), which column's value to return counting from the left (2 = the price column), and the match type. It finds "banana" in the first column and returns 20 from column 2. The fourth argument is the one that bites everyone: FALSE (or 0) means exact match and is what you almost always want; TRUE (or leaving it blank) means approximate match and silently returns wrong answers on unsorted data. Two more rules: the lookup value must be in the FIRST column of your table (VLOOKUP can't look left — see vlookup-to-the-left), and the column number is a fixed count, so inserting columns breaks it (INDEX/MATCH or XLOOKUP avoid that).
Verified, not just documented
We ran =VLOOKUP(D2,A2:B4,2,FALSE) in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3 (headless, with forced recalculation) and it returned 20 — exactly the expected result. Every formula here is confirmed by actually executing it.