Datasheet

16
Part I: Putting the Fun in Functions
Say you have a list of clients on a worksheet. What’s easier — thinking of
exactly which cells are occupied, or thinking that there is your list of clients?
Throughout this book, we use areas made of cell addresses and ranges,
which have been given names. It’s time to get your feet wet creating a named
area. Here’s what you do:
1. Position the mouse pointer over a cell, click and hold the left mouse
button down, and drag the pointer around.
2. Release the mouse button when done.
You’ve select an area of the worksheet.
3. Click Name a Range in the Named Cells category on the Formulas
Ribbon.
The New Name dialog box appears. Figure 1-9 shows you how it looks
so far.
4. Name the area if need be.
Excel guesses that you want to name the area with the value it finds
in the top cell of the range. That may or may not be what you want.
Change the name if you need to. In this example, we changed the name
to Clients.
An alternative method to naming an area is to select it, type the name in
the Name Box (left of the Formula Bar), and press the Enter key.
Figure 1-9:
Adding a
name to the
workbook.
5. Click the OK button.
That’s it. Hey, you’re already on your way to being an Excel pro! Now that
you have a named area, you can easily select your data at any time. Just go to
the Name Box and select it from the list. Figure 1-10 shows how we select the
Clients area we set up.
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