Question

I have a dataset like this:

      A     B          C
1     A     A is this   
2     B     Z is this
3     C     D is this
4     D     A is this
5     E     K is this

If cell B1 contains A, B, C, D or E (so a value of column A) than I want to put A,B,C,D,or E in cell C1

I’ve tried to do this with the following formula for C1:

=IF(FIND("A";B1;1);"A";IF(FIND("B";B1;1");"B";IF(FIND("C";B1;1) ...

But since my column A contains 24 possible values it becomes a very long formula.

Can someone help me to simplify this?

Answer 1

Place the following formula in column C:

=INDEX(A:A,MATCH(FALSE,ISERROR(FIND(A:A,B1)),0))

Enter it as an array formula, i.e. press Ctrl–Shift–Enter.