The Different Areas of a Spreadsheet

There are 3 main areas to each spreadsheet, which is something all spreadsheet applications have in common:

Columns

Columns go vertically across the screen from top to bottom. On the top you’ll see the column headers, labelled alphabetically with capital letters. Once the alphabet is exhausted, the columns continue with two letter names, followed by 3 letters. Currently there are 16,384 columns, with XFD being the last one to the right.

Rows

Rows span across the screen horizontally, from left to right. On the left hand side of your screen you find the row numbers, starting from 1. At the time of writing this, Excel allows for a staggering 1,048,576 rows!

Cells

The cells are the rectangles with the light grey borders you see across every spreadsheet. This is where the action takes place as those are the areas that contain all the content a user puts into the spreadsheet.

Each cell has a unique name containing the column header letter and the row number. When you create a new Excel workbook, the cell A1 is selected by default. Selected cells are automatically outlined in green. Just above the column headers, to the left of your screen, you will find the little cell navigation pane which reflects the name of the selected cell.

If you would like to navigate to a specific cell further away from the cell you are currently in, click into the cell navigation pane, enter the cell name and press enter. Excel will automatically bring you to that cell.