Google Spreadsheets Trick: Google Lookup

Google sure is a handy tool when you’re looking for information. It has answers on just about anything! Okay, it’s not as if an answer will instantly pop up when you type in a question on the Google search box, but if you key in your query the right way, then most likely you will find what you’re looking for in the first page of search results.

Now when you’re working on a document or a spreadsheet, however, you might be in need of some handy references, like population counts, conversions, or sizes or other figures. It’s always easy to just switch windows to access Google on a web browser, but here’s something even better. If you’re working on a spreadsheet with Google Docs and Spreadsheets, you can just key in the query into a cell and Google will look it up for you!

Here’s how.

First, select a cell you wish the data to appear on. Then, key in the following text:

=GoogleLookup(“entity”, “attribute”)

Entity is the name of the place, object, person or any other thing you want to look up informationon.

Attribute, meanwhile is the information you want looked up.

For instance, in this case, we want to determine the population of New York City.

=GoogleLookup(“New York City”, “population”)

We then get this result.

Sometimes, you’ll get “no available data” results, though. This means you may have to reformulate your query, meaning you should indicate the exact name of the entity you’re seeking information about, and the exact attribute you need. Still, this is a handy tool for those times you need readily-available information, but don’t have the time to flip through another browser window or tab and manually search for answers.