Cells and References

Part of the Fundamentals section of Coddy's Excel journey — lesson 2 of 42.

Every cell in the grid has its own address, so you can say exactly which box you mean. The system is simple: columns are labeled with letters across the top, A, B, C, …, and rows are numbered down the side, 1, 2, 3, …

A cell's name is its column letter followed by its row number. The cell where column B crosses row 3 is called B3. This is a cell reference, and the naming style is called A1 notation, after the very first cell, A1, in the top-left corner.

A1  = column A, row 1  (top-left corner)
C2  = column C, row 2
B10 = column B, row 10

The order never changes: letter first, number second. B3 is a real cell; 3B means nothing to Excel.

References matter because everything you do in a spreadsheet, entering data, and later writing formulas, starts with naming the right cell. When a task says "put 12 in B2", you now know exactly where to click: column B, second row.

Try it yourself

This lesson doesn't include a code challenge.