Sumif based on column headers

[dc_951]

First time post, so hello and thanks in advance.

If I have a spreadsheet with columns in A1:Z1 (say ora, tem, cha, etc.) and values listed below A2:Z9999. I have another tab that has the column headers listed in rows A1:A50 and I want to be able to have cells B1:B50 pull the sum of the column on the first tab that matches to whatever is in A1:A50.

Can I use a sumif or does it have to be sumproduct? Or would something be better?

 

[dmj120]

I updated the row references for the index and criteria, now it works

But I'm still wondering why adding the wildcard fixes the issue.

 

[T. Valko]

Including the wildcards was just a test to see what would happen.

If it now returns the correct result that tells me that the cells that contain "contract" might also contain other text like unseen whitespace characters.