Five benefits of naming ranges in Excel

Naming ranges means providing a specific name to a set of cells in a sheet or a workbook. Names are provided to cells when we have massive data, and it is difficult to, again and again, select the cell references for usage in the formulas. Names are important in Excel and are recommended by almost every Excel expert.

Here are five benefits of using named ranges in Excel:

Five benefits of naming ranges in Excel

• Easier to remember

Naming ranges make it easier to remember. Even if you ask a layman what is easier to remember a name or numerical code, they would answer with a name. Therefore, naming makes remembering the cells easier and using them in formulas.

• Quick Movement

If you wish to scroll down to cell AN2000, type the cell reference in the search name box. Similarly, if you want to search the July profits, all you need to do is, select the earnings for July, define the name, and for any further use, instead of using the cell references, you can use the specified name.

• Easy Formulas

Once you provide names to the ranges, you need not remember the cells to which you want to put a formula. For example, suppose that you have sales for each day of August in cells A20:A51. To find the total sales of August, the function will be =Sum(A20:A51); however, remembering this range can be tricky if many months need to be calculated. In such a case, you can define each month's sales ranges and use the named ranges to calculate the sum.

• Understanding becomes easier

Naming ranges makes it easier to understand the formulas and functions. Let us suppose you have two columns, Tax Column and Income Column. If we want to calculate income - taxes, the formula will be =D40-C40, where D40 is income and C40 is tax. A new user of the sheet would have to scroll back to the cell references to find out what has been subtracted. Instead, if we name the cells, the formula will be =Income-Tax. Making it easier to understand for you as well as any other user.

• Useful in VBA

A named range is dynamic. Even if you move the specified range of cells to any other cell location, it will be identified as it has been provided a name. For example, suppose you are a VBA developer, and you are preparing codes with reference to cell A1; if A1 gets shifted, the code will not run; however, if a name is provided to the cell and instead of a cell reference, the name is used, this would run the code despite it being present in the original cell or not.

What is easier to remember, a friend with a name or a friend with an alphanumeric character? Of course, you would answer by name. So is the case while using Excel. Defining names to ranges in Excel makes understanding and applying formulas and functions easier.