Managing Data with Microsoft® Excel

Finding Data with MATCH

OFFSET and INDEX both return values from a range--more generally, from an array--given information about where to look. In contrast, MATCH tells you where in a range to look, given information about values.

NOTE

What's the difference between an array and a range? An array refers to any arrangement of one or more rows crossed by one or more columns. It needn't exist on a worksheet. It could be and often is a memory array used by code written in VBA (or C or FORTRAN or Java); your VBA code can use the worksheet functions described here on memory arrays. A range is an array that's located on a worksheet. You can, and often do, use VBA to move data back and forth between worksheet ranges and memory arrays.

For example, this ...