Offset Function
Offset Function
Here is the syntax for these three very powerful functions in plain English:
OFFSET is your way of telling excel to fetch a portion from large range of values. You can compare OFFSET to what you see from your car window while driving. As your car moves, you see different things from the window. OFFSET returns a reference to the portion of a large range you have supplied based on 5 parameters. For eg. OFFSET (A1, 3,4, 5,6) would return 56 cell range from E4 (A+4 columns, 1+3 rows = E4) thus: E4: J9 See this illustration to understand how OFFSET spreadsheet formula works:
Finally
Remember, both VLOOKUP and MATCH throw a fail error of #value! if the value you are looking for is not there. Also, OFFSET returns a range so make sure you pass the value to another function like SUM that accepts ranges. Just use them with some dummy data, play around with arguments and see how you can say oh yeah, I can do that in few minutes to your boss next time.