HLOOKUP over several columns returns nothing else then N/A

I am very familiar with VLOOKUP in excel, but HLOOKUP seems not as easy to master as its vertical pendant. Here is a very simple case I can' solve by myself: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3224566/Book1.xls开发者_运维技巧x

I don't understand what is wrong with that kind of formula use, but I would really need to expend that one to a series of rows (thus I can' transpose that set of data to workaround my issue with VLOOKUP!)

Thanks in advance for your help and best regards

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You need to be doing a HLOOKUP on the top row (just as VLOOKUP looks to match the leftmost column) - whereas you are attempting to lookup row 3

using an two stage INDEX and MATCH operation, the MATCH to find your value in row 3, the INDEX to return the cell in row 1 two cells above your MATCH is a superior option

=IF(ISNA(MATCH(B3,C3:AW3,0)),"no match",INDEX(C1:AW1,MATCH(B3,C3:AW3,0)))

Some further reading courtesy of google searches

http://exceluser.com/blog/420/excel%E2%80%99s-vlookup-vs-index-match-functions.html

http://www.decisionmodels.com/optspeede.htm