Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Applying Range Names to Formulas.
Named ranges can be a great boon when you are writing formulas. For instance, if you assign the name TaxRate to cell A7, you can then use the name TaxRate in your formulas instead of A7. This makes your formulas (and their purpose) easier to understand when you are later working with them.
This approach is great if you have not yet created any formulas. What if you already have a bunch of formulas in your worksheet, and they already reference cell A7 instead of TaxRate? You could, of course, select each formula and edit them to refer to TaxRate instead of A7, but that could be a long process that is prone to mistakes. (My fat fingers often introduce mistakes that I never intended. :>))
The solution is to allow Excel to do the editing for you. It is easy to do; just follow these steps:
Figure 1. The Apply Names dialog box.
That's it; Excel examines your formulas and any reference to cell A7 is replaced with the name of A7, TaxRate.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (8262) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Applying Range Names to Formulas.
Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!
When working with text phrases stored in cells, it might be helpful to be able to extract words from the phrase. In this ...
Discover MoreAn amortization schedule is a report that shows how the outstanding balance on a loan changes with payments made over ...
Discover MoreIf a series of cells contain the amount of money won by individuals, you may want to count the number of individuals who ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
2015-03-20 17:54:49
Gates Is Antichrist
Note dead Walkenbach link as I'm writing this. (Not even in wayback)
BTW in case you think nobody would come to this page because they don't use pre-2007, there's more of them than the mainstream wishes to acknowledge. Some of us - maybe yourself - prefer productivity to rhetorical "latest most modern" bullspeak. (This is not whining or tinfoil clutching to the past; it's just that post-2003 Office adds a layer of abstraction which is purely deproductive. Most damaging, you can't go alt-D and arrow through all choices, or alt-I,N and arrow through all choices; with the ribbon and icon arrangement, you have to already know what choices are available, rather than have every single one presented to you. Jensen Harris is the most clueless person in the history of science :) )
Thanks for all your great contributions. Including this one!
Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2018 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: 
Comments