Excel: Using the Index Function - What You Should Know

In Excel, there are several functions that you can use to accomplish different things. One of these functions is the index function, which allows you to address an exact row in a table of values and have the value output. It's useful when you don't want to query values by Excel indexing.

How to use the index function?

If you have created a table with values in Excel and want to display a specific value, you can use the index function. This uses the internal indexing of the table and not the cell numbering of Excel.

1. Create a table in which you enter numerical values - for example, a value that goes from cell A1 to D6.
2. Now you can apply the index function in a cell. To do this, write "=INDEX(A1:D6,Z,S)" and replace Z with the row number and S with the column number.
3. In this cell is now the value that you find in the table at the position Z/S.
4. So the index function consists of three arguments, the table range, the row number and the column number.

You can combine the index function with the comparison function and thus have a value picked out only by its row and column designation. This has the advantage that you only have to enter the identifiers and no longer have to search for the row and column number itself.