So first of all what does this mean and why would you bother? Let me give you two examples

=sum(a1:a10) or =sum(salaries)

Which do you think looks easier to read and understand? Yes, the second one. So a very useful way to help document and clarify your spreadsheet is to create range names and to refer to them in your formulas.

View the video below to see how to do it.

[flowplayer src=’https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/the-excel-expert/creating_a_range_name.mp4′]

Couple of key points:

  • Use F3 (top row of your keyboard) to call up your list of range names
  • No spaces in range names (or as I often say in class – you can enter spaces but it doesn’t work 🙂 )

There is no file given for this – see if you can use this feature on one of your own files.