Combining Match and Offset

Question

I want to use match function to find a value (say, value in A3) from a named range, and then use offset to give the value right of the value searched, from the named range. The named range is called "CATEGORY" I've written something like this:

=OFFSET(MATCH(CATEGORY, A3, 0)), 1, 1, 1, 1)

Its not working, how do I make it work?

Answer 1

MATCH returns a number; OFFSET needs a range as reference.

Also, MATCH requires a value as the first argument and a range as the second.

The following works

=OFFSET(category, MATCH(A3, category,0)-1, 1)

assuming that you are looking for the value in A3 in the column CATEGORY

Note that MATCH returns 1 for the first cell - so you need to subtract one to stay on the same line; similarly, you need a column offset of +1 to get "cell to the right". The 0 third argument for MATCH means "exact match".

Example of this formula at work: