Microsoft Office Reference Guide

Mar 26, 2004

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Ranges have been a method for identifying groups of cells in Excel for a while, but in Excel 2007 there are a few new wrinkles as you name and work with Ranges in the Ribbon.

In many ways a Range is like the natural language feature that was introduced in earlier versions of Office, but it gives you more versatility with its various options in Excel 2007.

(Note: If you are working with earlier versions of Excel there is a Name Manager Add-In available from JKP Application Development Services.)

The easiest way to create (or designate and name a Range) is to select the group of cells in Excel and then type a name into the Name box on the other side of the Formula bar.

Here I’ve selected three months of data for Pipes and named the Range “Pipes.”

Figure 1

You can use the Ranges to navigate back to the named area from any worksheet in the workbook. All you need to do is to click the dropdown arrow of the Name box and click the Range name, and you go right to that worksheet with the cells re-selected.

Figure 2

If your spreadsheet has a number of workbooks, you might name the Range more specifically, like “Pipes_Q1;” in any case you return to the original location of the named Range.

Figure 3

The main use of named Ranges, however, is for calculation, not navigation. When you copy the formula of a Named Range to another location, its result remains the same, so it’s another way of using an absolute cell reference.

Here a simple formula that references the Range is copied to another worksheet. (“SUM (Jan_Q1)”)

You can copy or move a Range (CTRL-X) and paste it or a formula based on it elsewhere in the workbook.

Figure 4

Figure 5

Selecting a named Range from the Name box can also facilitate quick printing (and avoid the necessity for adjusting margins); here we can quickly select Jan_Q1 for printing, and in the Print options choose Print Selection to see a preview of just the named Range that will print.

Figure 6

The Name Manager, in the Insert tab of the Ribbon in Excel 2007 provides a lot of control for creating, editing, deleting and checking the references of named ranges.

Figure 7

Selecting another group of cells and clicking New in the Name Manager lets you accept the name based on the Column heading, or revise the name and save it to the list of Ranges.

If you want, you can set the Scope to be able to refer to a Named Range either within one or more worksheets, or for the entire workbook.

The Filter drop down menu allows you do one or more of the following:

Names Scoped To Worksheet: Display only those names that are local to a worksheet.
Names Scoped To Workbook: Display only those names that are global to a workbook.
Names With Errors Display only those names with values that contain errors (such as #REF, #VALUE, or #NAME).
Names Without Errors: Display only those names with values that do not contain errors.
Defined Names: Display only names defined by you or by Excel, such as a print area.
Table Names: Display only table names.

Figure 8

If you need to change the cell references of a named range, you can also do that directly in the Name Manger. Just highlight the named range and use the Collapse and Expand dialog box in the Refers to field below the list of named ranges.

With the named range highlighted, click the Collapse dialog box, then in your worksheet (re) select the new range for the named range, click the Expand dialog box and click Accept to confirm the new range of cells.

You can also quickly insert a Range reference into the Formula bar from the Formula tab, by clicking Use in Formula; you will still need to format the formula correctly to make it work, using the right Function (SUM) and adding parenthesis but for a complex workbook this is a great way, again, to work with natural language — the actual words representing data — instead of trying to remember what C6:D6 represents.

Figure 9

One other aspect of Ranges is worth noting: their differentiation from Tables.

Tables as we have discussed before, are really about sorting and filtering information (including data) and using the Table formatting gallery to apply a quick table style.

But be careful mixing Tables and Ranges. Tables will put a sort field in the first row of the table and do some other formatting you may later decide you don’t want.

To revert to a Range, select the entire table, and click the Design tab in the Table Tools on the Ribbon. Then click Convert to Range.

In summary, using named Ranges strategically can help you navigate and work with different parts of your workbook more efficiently, by naming significant groups of cells for later quick reference in formulas, functions and copying or moving them to other locations.

InformIT Articles and Sample Chapters

Referring to Excel Ranges

Using Formulas in Excel

Books and eBooks

Excel Hacks, 2e

Excel 2007 Pivot Tables and PivotCharts

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