Marg0040 Author

Level 1

4 points

Display a Column Letter in a Cell

Is there a formula or function that would allow me to display a column letter in a cell? I tried the Column function, but it returns the column number, in my case column C = 3. I have several tables using helper cells for conditional formatting. I like to label the column where the conditional formatting is applied. However, if I insert a column my references change and I'm trying to automate the reference process. Thank you

MacBook Air (M4, 2025)

Posted on Dec 26, 2025 2:34 PM

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4 replies

Level 7

30,534 points

Dec 26, 2025 4:08 PM in response to Marg0040

For cell C2:

=TEXTBEFORE(REFERENCE.NAME(C2),REGEX("\d"))

REFERENCE.NAME(C2) returns the cell reference as a string, which is "C2"

The complete formula returns the text to the left of the digits, which will be "C"

This will work for multi-letter columns, too.

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Community+ 2025

Level 10

741,443 points

Dec 26, 2025 2:40 PM in response to Marg0040

Use:

CHAR(COLUMN()+65)

for single-letter ones.

(262336)

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Level 7

30,534 points

Dec 26, 2025 4:59 PM in response to Badunit

Or

=REGEX.EXTRACT(REFERENCE.NAME(C2),"[A-Z]+")

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Marg0040 Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 26, 2025 5:21 PM in response to Badunit

Thank you. This solution allow double-letters (AA).

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Display a Column Letter in a Cell

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