What would you use to find a specific value in a vertical table?

To find a specific value in a vertical table, using the VLOOKUP function is the most appropriate choice. VLOOKUP stands for "Vertical Lookup," and its primary purpose is to search for a value in the first column of a vertically organized dataset and return a corresponding value from another column in the same row.

This function allows users to specify the value they want to find, the range of data to search in, the column from which to retrieve the data, and whether to look for an exact match or an approximate match. VLOOKUP is particularly efficient when dealing with large datasets arranged in a vertical format, making it a popular choice for such tasks in spreadsheet modeling.

The other functions mentioned serve different purposes. For instance, the FIND and SEARCH functions are better suited for searching for substrings within text strings but are not designed for looking up values in data arrays like VLOOKUP is. The INDEX function, while powerful and useful in retrieving a value from a specific position in a table or range, does not inherently perform a lookup based on a key value like VLOOKUP does. Instead, INDEX is often used in combination with the MATCH function to create a flexible lookup capability.

Thus, VLOOKUP is the optimal choice for finding specific