Excel and Google Sheets function reference

Start from the result, not the function name

Most spreadsheet problems are easier to describe than to name. You know you want the unit price that matches a SKU; you do not necessarily know whether that is VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP or INDEX with MATCH. If that is where you are, skip the category list and use the generator — describe the result and it picks the function.

The reference is for the other direction: you already know the function, and you need its exact argument order, what it does at the edges, or why it is returning an error. Every page opens with the signature and the argument table for that reason.

What is on every function page

The signature and a typed argument table, stating which arguments are required and what each one does when the input is empty, the wrong type, or out of range.

Three worked examples built on one dataset, so you can follow a single table through all three rather than re-reading a new scenario each time. Each shows the formula, the literal value it returns, and why.

A table of the error codes that function actually produces — not a generic list — with the cause and the fix for each. And a formula generator scoped to that function, so asking it for help on a VLOOKUP page gets you a VLOOKUP answer.

Excel and Google Sheets are not the same set

Every page states availability, because the gaps matter. XLOOKUP, LET, TEXTSPLIT and the dynamic array family need Microsoft 365 or Excel 2021 and simply do not exist in Excel 2016 or 2019 — a formula using them opens as #NAME? on a colleague's older build.

In the other direction, QUERY, ARRAYFORMULA and the IMPORT family are Google Sheets only and have no Excel equivalent, which is why they have their own category here rather than being mixed in.

Where a function exists in both but behaves differently, the availability note says so rather than leaving you to find out in production.

One page per function

A few functions legitimately belong to two categories — SEQUENCE is both maths and a dynamic array, TEXTSPLIT is both text and parsing. Each has exactly one page, under its primary category, and the other category links to it rather than repeating it. So a link you find anywhere in this reference always lands on the same canonical page for that function.