1.1 Introduction

Many of you may already be familiar with the concept of named cells, named ranges, and named formulas. This lesson will provide you with an overview of what names are, how to define them, how to use names in a variety of situations, and how to define and use multiple names at once.

When users initially begin working with Excel, they quickly become accustomed to referencing individual cells by referring to the column and row of individual cells (e.g., =B7). While the simple naming convention allows users to quickly identify a particular cell and easily refer to it in a formula, keeping track of which cells contain specific values can be daunting, especially since Excel allows you to easily insert and delete rows and columns. In more complex workbooks, it’s not unusual to have to spend a significant amount of time navigating throughout the workbook to find the cell that is needed. Using names in Excel is an often underutilized yet powerful feature. Names and named ranges make your worksheet formulas easier to create, understand, and maintain.

So, what is a name? A name is simply an identifier or label for something in a workbook. While names can refer to charts, data tables, or other objects in Excel, in this lesson we focus on names that identify one or more cells in a workbook, as well as names that contain values or formulas that aren’t associated with a specific cell.

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