A little from column A, a little from column B: XLOOKUP is the new, easier way to retrieve information across Excel spreadsheets.

As a long-term Excel enthusiast, I have always enjoyed using VLOOKUP, one of Excel's best-known lookup functions. However, Microsoft's introduction of XLOOKUP in 2019 changed everything.

The Row function in Microsoft Excel is a Lookup and Reference function, and its purpose is to return the row number of a reference. The formula for the Row function is Row([reference]).

VLOOKUP and Search are two functions that Excel uses to search for text. VLOOKUP finds data in a column and returns the contents of an adjacent cell.

If you work with a large dataset or usually query the same data in an Excel table, then you should use the VLOOKUP function to make your life easier – here's how.