How to get value of adjacent cell based on key, if the table is split into multiple columns

Question

I need some help figuring out some Google Sheets function. I'm trying to look for the value of an adjacent cell based on a key. The problem is that the table has several rows and columns to search for. For example:

  |    A    |    B    |    C    |    D    |
1 | Alpha   | 5       | Bravo   | 10      |
2 | Charlie | 15      | Delta   | 20      |

The list goes on for several more rows and columns. What I'm looking for for example, is when I use "Delta" as my search key, it will return the value 20 for me.

Answer 1

You can still use vlookup for this, by stacking the lookup tables into one using the array notation {first ; second; third} which means first above second above third. Example:

=vlookup("Delta", {A:B; C:D}, 2, False)

returns 20.