# Excel Challenge
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-challenge/646236
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 6, 2013, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-challenge/646236 "2013-01-06T05:43:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2013, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-challenge/646236/1 "2013-01-06T05:43:16Z")
I want to find the row number of the nearest match, e.g. in the example below, Previous is the row# of the nearest matching value above.
It’s easy to find the nearest matching value _below_. But for _above_ I’m stumped.
```auto
Row Fruit Previous
--- ----- --------
2 Banana #N/A
3 Apple #N/A
4 Orange #N/A
5 Grape #N/A
6 Banana 2
7 Apple 3
8 Grape 5
9 Banana 6
10 Apple 7
```
---
### Author:  [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2013, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-challenge/646236/2 "2013-01-06T06:44:36Z")
nm - I figured it out. The actual layout is below:
```auto
Row Fruit Prev Next
2 Banana #N/A 6
3 Apple #N/A 7
4 Orange #N/A #N/A
5 Grape #N/A 8
6 Banana 2 9
7 Apple 3 10
8 Grape 5 #N/A
9 Banana 6 #N/A
10 Apple 7 #N/A
```
You can take advantage of the “Next” column. In row 7 for example:
Previous cell contains “=MATCH(ROW(B7),$D$1: D7,0)”
Next cell contains “=MATCH(B7,B8:$B$11,0)+ROW(B7)”