Spreadsheet How-Tos
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Why VLOOKUP Fails: 6 Messy-Data Causes and the Fix for Each
VLOOKUP returns #N/A on values that look identical because they are not identical: a trailing space, a number stored as text, or a curly quote makes Excel see two different values. The fix is almost never the formula; it is the data. Here are the six causes ranked by how often they bite, with the
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How to Remove Duplicates in Excel Without Losing Good Data
To remove duplicates in Excel safely: normalize the data first (trim whitespace, fix capitalization), use conditional formatting or COUNTIF to SEE the duplicates, then run Data > Remove Duplicates on a copy. Running Remove Duplicates first, on messy data, is the most common way to miss real duplicates, because Excel only matches exact values. Why
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How to Clean Data in Excel: The Five Problems and Every Fix
Cleaning data in Excel means fixing five things: extra whitespace, inconsistent capitalization, mixed phone and date formats, duplicates, and values stored as the wrong type. You can fix all five with built-in Excel functions, and this guide shows each one, or you can upload your CSV to our free cleaning tool and review the changes