How to get Header Column Content based on MIN or RANK

Question

Hey Everyone,
I am trying to grab the header content based off of the lowest of three values.
If I have:
How do i get the column header of the lowest price?
I tried VLOOKUP and MIN and RANK. And is its easier can I just rank the with the column header in each cell?
Like:
Company X - $1.00
Company Y - $2.00
Company Z - $3.00

Answer 1

jjmancini wrote:
What i would like to have ideally is for the right most column to rank in each column from lowest to highest.
Example of last Column:
1) $1.00 - Company X
2) $2.00 - Company Y
3) $3.00 - Company Z
That would be the ideal solution.
At least three, Yvan.
I'm still not clear what this result is ranking, jj. That's partly due to the sample data in your table:
The results shown are both the rankings of the prices in row 2 and the rankings of the lowest prices in each column. Which is it you are looking for? I've assumed you want to compare prices in each row.
Second complication: In the column 1 header, the content is "Price Company X"; in the Example of last Column, the resulting text, which you want picked up from that header is "Company X".
While that's not too difficult to pick off for the examples, where each 'company name' has exactly 9 characters, the simple solution won't work for 'real' companies. Placing the exact text you want copied into this row would simplify the task. See example below.
Third complication: Although A2 on your sample shows "1.00", the actual content of the cell is "1", and the ".00" is added to the display by setting format for the cell. When picked off by a function, only the value is picked up, and it's that value that's available to the formula constructing the text string in the last column. I've avoided that by placing the company name and the price in separate cells.
Formulas:
Auxiliary table: A3: =SMALL(Main :: $B3:$D3,COLUMN())
Fill right to column C. Fill Down to row 12 (to match Main table's data rows).
Main Table: F3: =Auxiliary :: $A3
Main Table: H3: =Auxiliary :: $B3
Main Table: J3: =Auxiliary :: $C3
Construct each of these three separately.
Main Table: E3: =LOOKUP(F3,$B3:$D3,$B$2:$D$2)
After clicking Accept, Copy cell E3, then select and Paste in G3 and I3.
Pasted formulas will be the same except for the F3 reference.
After placing these formulas, select cells E3:J3 and fill down to row 12.
The Auxiliary table is used to sort the prices, and may be hidden. It may also be eliminated by replacing the formulas in F3, H3 and J3 with
F3: =SMALL($B3:$D3,1)
H3: =SMALL($B3:$D3,2)
J3: =SMALL($B3:$D3,3)
Formatting will need to be reset for these columns.
Regards,
Barry