MS Excel Tutorial

Within Excel you can use the labels of columns and rows to refer to the cells contained within the range of columns and rows for example A2:B2 or, you can create names to represent these cells, as well as to represent formulas or constant values.
Usually the name box on the Formula Bar only displays the active cell reference for example A2 or B2. It does however have another use and this is to define and select named ranges.
The name is simply a text label given to one or more (a range) of cells on your Excel worksheet. For example, "Widget_Sales" could refer to a single cell which contains the yearly total of widget sales or it could refer to a whole list of individual sales reps figures.
Let's create a named range:-

• Select a Cell Or Group Of Cells
• Formula Menu
• Named Cells panel in Excel 2007
• Click Name A Range
• Form the Name A Range Menu
• Type the name you want
• Hit Ok

You will then see your named range in the name box, when you select the named range from the drop down box your corresponding cells will be highlighted. There are a few rules to follow when naming your ranges:-

1. They can be up to 255 characters long
2. They must start with either a letter or an underscore _
3. They can include full stops
4. They can't include spaces or punctuation
5. Each named range in your work book must be unique

Any of the names you enter are not case sensitive but will be displayed as you type them, so be careful if you type something like Widgets_Year with WIDGETS_YEAR, the new range of WIDGETS_YEAR will replace the former as it is not case sensitive.
So, how do we used these named ranges?
You can now go ahead and use your named range instead if typing a range of cells or as a constant value.
For example.
Sales Tax could be contained in Cell A2, if you renamed your cell A2 as Sales_Tax then you do not need to remember which cell Sales Tax is in, but just refer to it in your formulas as Sales_Tax see below:
=Sales_Tax*B2- (where B2 is your Widget Selling Price).
You can also use named ranges to quickly navigate to around your ranges in your worksheet. You can either click the down arrow in the Name box and select the names range or use the GoTo dialog box (accessed quickly using the F5) and typing the names range you want to be taken to.
Named ranges in Excel really do make it easier to remember the purpose of a formula instead of sometimes obscure cell references in a work sheet. I also find they help in the maintenance and navigation of formulas in my worksheets.

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