if column contains certain value, display value from adjacent cell

I need it to search the B-column for the entry that has the correct date and then as a result show me the entry of the cell in the A-column with the same row-number.

You can do that with a the INDEX MATCH combination, something like this:

In Numbers 2 the formula would be like this:

=INDEX(Contents::$A,MATCH(A2,Contents::$B,0))

You would replace the , with ; as needed for your localization.

Note that the way Numbers deals with dates can sometimes prevent a matches when you expect one. That's because Numbers always stores a true date as a date-time string and the time component is often hidden by the cell formatting. Here, since I didn't need to do any date arithmetic, I avoided any possible complications by entering the "dates" as true strings by first typing a ' and then a "date" exactly as shown. That's why the "dates" in the screenshot are left-justified.

SG

Hi Katinkaw,

Here is an approach that uses an index column in each table to create a unique value to search for. Once set up these columns can be hidden. For my tables I am imagining you only expect 3 items for each date. If you want more, add more. You can hide the error messages and hide the unneeded rows by displaying only rows in column B that are not blank with the reorganize menu.

C2 =YEARFRAC("1/1/2015",A2,)+COUNTIF(A$2:A2,A2)

This formula is the same in each table and is filled down. It adds the number of times a date appears in the list to the fraction of the year that date represents.

Then we search for that number in our other table.

B2 =INDEX(Planning::B$1:B$10,MATCH(C2,Planning::index,0),1,)

This is filled down.

My table looks different because I filtered it to only show rows with values in column B. If I added a bag of cherries to the planning table it would show up if there was a date match.

Let me know if you have any questions.

quinn

Having trouble following exactly what you are trying to do. Could you post a screenshot?

SG