Article Summary
The practical lesson is that XLOOKUP is almost always the better choice when you control the Excel environment, because it eliminates VLOOKUP's three major limitations: only rightward lookup, default approximate match, and reliance on column index numbers. The diagnostic angle: if you're building a workbook for distribution to people with older Excel versions, you must stick with VLOOKUP or provide a compatibility fallback. Also, XLOOKUP makes formulas easier to read and maintain by removing the need for helper columns or IFERROR wrappers. The key diagnostic question to answer is: 'Am I locked into legacy Excel compatibility?' If no, use XLOOKUP; if yes, use VLOOKUP with careful handling of its pitfalls.
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