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Today I had an email request:

I wasn't sure how to post, or join so I'm sending my question to you this way. I cannot figure out how to remove the #N/A error in LOOKUP. If the cells are blank it returns the #N/A error - I'd like to return either a blank or 0 instead. How do I do that? Her is my formula. (I'm sure you can tell by my formula I'm a rookie at this.) Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

=SUM((LOOKUP(B6,{1,2,3,4,5},{40,30,20,10,0}))+(LOOKUP(C6,{1,2,3,4,5},{40,30,20,10,0})+(LOOKUP(D6,{1,2,3,4,5},{40,30,20,10,0})+(LOOKUP(E6,{1,2,3,4,5},{40,30,20,10,0})+(LOOKUP(F6,{1,2,3,4,5},{40,30,20,10,0}))))))

I have written a post on this before when I explained the ISNA function.

In this case I will break down the first component of the formula and show you how to insert it.

First of all understand that because this formula is summing components that are lookups, if any one of them returns an error than the overall sum will be an error even if the rest is not an error.

So to fix =LOOKUP(B6,{1,2,3,4,5},{40,30,20,10,0}) when it displays #N/A (eg if B6 is less than 1) we would use this function:

=IF(ISNA(LOOKUP(B6,{1,2,3,4,5},{40,30,20,10,0}))=TRUE,0,LOOKUP(B6,{1,2,3,4,5},{40,30,20,10,0}))

The same concept could be used for each lookup component. In this case the formula would become very involved so there might be easier ways to do it. Sometimes breaking the individual components our into individual cells and then summing them is a way to give more visible results – and easily see which component is causing the error.

So Lois – i hope that helps – and thanks for liking us on Facebook!