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lizziesmalls23

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How to return cell location of dynamic value in static list?

Example

Static List:
Dates          Cell Location
12/1/13       B2
12/8/13       B3
12/15/13     B4

If a user inputs 12/8/13 in Cell A1, I need a formula to tell me the value in A1 is located at B3 in the list. I need the formula to be dynamic so that if a user would input the value of 12/15/13 into cell A1, it would return a result of B3.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of Zack Barresse
Zack Barresse
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SOLUTION
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Good to hear.

Merry Christmas. :)

Zack
Given your other question on charting, you may be trying to define a range of cells to plot. A cell address, such as returned using the ADDRESS function, is merely text. It does not point to the actual cell. To use the result of ADDRESS in a formula, you need to put it inside the INDIRECT function.

If my guess is correct, you would be better off using the INDEX function, which returns a range reference to a cell in column B.
=INDEX($B$2:$B$11,MATCH($A$1,$B$2:$B$11,0))

If you want to define a starting date in A1 and an ending date in A2, you could define the range of data as:
=INDEX($B$2:$B$11,MATCH($A$1,$B$2:$B$11,0)):INDEX($B$2:$B$11,MATCH($A$2,$B$2:$B$11,0))

I made a point of making all cell references in the above formula use absolute addressing. You will want to do that if you are creating a dynamic named range. If you don't, the cells being referenced will change depending on the active cell where you use the formula.

Brad
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lizziesmalls23

ASKER

It's an additional way to find the answer, and can be a little more dynamic in a larger spreadsheet/data set.