Usually, when you refer to items of data in a formula, you enter the data explicitly or refer to cell coordinates, e.g. 10, A1, B1F10 or {1, 2, 3}.
Names enable you to give a name to items of data. Names can be easier to remember and are often easier to change than data items in your spreadsheet.
For example, you could have a name VAT, which you would use instead of entering 0.175 into your formulae directly. Then, when the Chancellor puts up VAT to 20%, all you have to do is change the definition of the name VAT instead of having to find all occurrences of 0.175 in your spreadsheets and change them individually.
The following rules apply to names:
Names can refer to the following:
Name | Refers to |
---|---|
apples |
A1A100 |
VAT |
0.175 |
January_sales |
[sales]A56 |
[costs]total |
B78 |
_freda |
"freda" |
arg_123 |
{1,2,3} |
SalesDate |
12.6.1989 |
Examples of bad names:
A1
- The digit is not preceded by an underscore character;
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
- Too long.
To define a name:
The name is now defined. It ‘belongs’ to the document in which you defined it and its definition will be saved when the document is saved.
To insert a name into your document, either type it in or:
The name will be inserted into your document.
To change a name’s definition:
The name’s definition is now changed.