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Cells, rows, columns and ranges

An Excel worksheet has 1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns. Every one of those cells has a short name such as B7.

A grid with names

A spreadsheet is a grid of boxes called cells. The columns run down the page and are labelled with letters: A, B, C and so on. The rows run across and are numbered 1, 2, 3 from the top. A cell is named by its column letter followed by its row number, so the cell in column B and row 7 is B7. That name is called the cell address or cell reference. The letter always comes first. Writing 7B is not an address that Excel or Google Sheets understands.

The thick outline is the selected cell, B2. The shaded block is the range C2:D4: two columns by three rows, six cells.

After column Z the letters double up: AA, AB, AC and on to AZ, then BA, and so on. In Excel the last column is XFD, which is column number 16,384, and the last row is 1,048,576, according to Microsoft's list of specifications and limits. Google Sheets sets its limit differently: Google's help page on file sizes allows up to 20 million cells in one spreadsheet, shared by all its sheets. You will rarely come near either limit, but the numbers explain why a spreadsheet can hold a whole year of daily sales without trouble.

Selecting and the name box

Click a cell and it becomes the active cell, drawn with a thick border. Two places show which cell is active. The name box at the left end of the formula bar shows the address, and the column letter and row number in the headers are highlighted. The formula bar itself shows what is really stored in the cell. That difference matters later: a cell can show 12 while it stores a formula that calculates 12. Arrow keys move the active cell one step at a time, Tab moves right and Enter moves down.

A rectangle of cells is a range, written as two addresses joined by a colon: the top-left corner and the bottom-right corner. A1:A10 is ten cells in column A. B2:D3 is three columns by two rows, which makes six cells. To count the cells in a range, multiply the number of columns by the number of rows. Microsoft calls the colon the range operator, and you will type it inside nearly every formula you write, as in =SUM(B2:B13) for twelve monthly figures.

BackgroundThe first spreadsheet program for personal computers was VisiCalc, written by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston and released for the Apple II in 1979. It already used letters for columns and numbers for rows. Lotus 1-2-3 followed in 1983, and Excel arrived on the Macintosh in 1985. Google Sheets came later, as a spreadsheet that runs in a web browser. The A1 naming has survived every one of these programs, which is why a reference you learn today works in all of them.
Try the small sheet below. Click a cell and watch the name box and the panel underneath. Type into the formula bar at the top, or select a cell and start typing, then press Enter. The tasks are checked as soon as the value is in place.
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Drag to turn. Scroll or pinch to zoom.

A five-by-six sheet. The panel under the grid shows the address, what is typed and what kind of value it is.
  1. What is the address of the cell in column C, row 5?
  2. How many cells are in the range A1:C4?
  3. How many cells are in B2:D3?
  4. Which column comes right after column Z?
    • AA
    • ZA
    • A1
    • Z1
  5. Which cell is in row 7?
    • C7
    • G3
    • 7C
    • G17
  6. Which cell is NOT inside the range B2:D5?
    • E3
    • C4
    • B5
    • D2
  7. Write the range for the ten cells A1 to A10.
  8. How many rows does an Excel worksheet have?
  9. Excel's last column is XFD. What column number is it?
  10. Where can you see what is really stored in the active cell?
    • The formula bar
    • The column header
    • The row number
    • The sheet tab
Key points
  • A cell address is column letter then row number, such as B7.
  • A range is two corners joined by a colon, such as B2:D3.
  • Cells in a range = columns × rows.
  • Excel: 1,048,576 rows × 16,384 columns. Google Sheets: up to 20 million cells per spreadsheet.
Sources for this course (2)
  • Microsoft Support, "Excel specifications and limits" (support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/excel-specifications-and-limits-1672b34d-7043-467e-8e27-269d656771c3: 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns, 15-digit precision, 255 arguments), "Calculation operators and precedence in Excel" (.../calculation-operators-and-precedence-in-excel-48be406d-4975-4d31-b2b8-7af9e0e2878a: operators, order negation % ^ * / + - & comparisons, =5+2*3 is 11, ="1"+"2" is 3, ="A"&TRUE is ATRUE, #### for too little space), "SUM function" (.../sum-function-043e1c7d-7726-4e80-8f32-07b23e057f89: up to 255 numbers, =A1+B1+C1 gives #VALUE! with text while SUM ignores text), "Switch between relative, absolute, and mixed references" (.../dfec08cd-ae65-4f56-839e-5f0d8d0baca9: =B4*C4 copied from D4 to D5 becomes =B5*C5), "Date systems in Excel" (.../e7fe7167-48a9-4b96-bb53-5612a800b487: July 5, 2011 is 40729 in the 1900 system and 39267 in the 1904 system, 1,462 days apart), "Remove or allow a circular reference" (.../8540bd0f-6e97-4483-bcf7-1b49cd50d123: warning, then 0 or the last value), VLOOKUP and IF pages (#N/A, #NAME? from missing quotes). Google Docs Editors Help: SUM (support.google.com/docs/answer/3093669: any number of arguments), DATE (answer/3092969: days counted from December 30, 1899), Keyboard shortcuts for Google Sheets (answer/181110: Ctrl+D fill down, Ctrl+R fill right, Ctrl+~ show all formulas, F4 absolute/relative), Files you can store in Google Drive (support.google.com/drive/answer/37603: up to 20 million cells per spreadsheet), ERROR.TYPE (answer/3238305: the error values). History: Smithsonian National Museum of American History, VisiCalc software and documentation, object nmah_1696121 (Bricklin and Frankston, Apple II, 1979)
  • ACM Interactions, "The first killer app: a history of spreadsheets" (2013: Lotus 1-2-3, Excel for the Macintosh in 1985)

Checked: 2026-10-17