Vlookups

[T. Jenkins]

I'm using Vlookups for numbers stored as text. This seems
to be creating lots of problems and inconsistencies in the
results of the Vlookup, and I'm looking for guidance and
help. The main problem is that the lookup doesn't work
(e.g. #N/A) for some cells.

The only repeatable solution I've found is to edit the
reference cell by either adding then removing a trailing
space, or apply a formula like Concantenate to the
referenced cell then copy/paste values from the
Concatenate back to the reference cell.

It's unclear why this solves the problem, but I'm hoping
there's another way of avoiding this issues. Anyone have
a good set of guidelines for using Vlookups?

Thanks,
Todd