How do I name a cell or range of cells?

A cell may be 'named' in formulas using its column name followed by its row name. The column name is the contents of the cell at the head of the column, in the header row closest to the 'named' cell. The row name is the contents of the cell lying left of the 'named cell, in the closest header column to the 'named' cell.

For a more detailed description, including the types of ranges that may be named, see the article Referring to Cells in Formulas in Chapter 6 of the Numbers '09 User Guide.

Regards,

Barry

Mirsky,

The usual reason for naming a range of cells is to be able to simplify the reference in formulas and to organize a large table into compartments of related data or calculations. This is sometimes convenient within a Sheet in Excel because Excel can have only one table per sheet.

Numbers gives us the freedom to create numerous tables per sheet, and to name them individually just as we would name ranges in Excel. These subdivisions in Numbers Sheets can be freely moved about on the sheet and formatted individually, but they remain, in effect, just like named ranges in Excel.

We call having one table per sheet and dividing it up with borders, and merged cells and the like, "the Excel way". Creating individual tables for related calculations and data, and putting things in separate tables that we want to print separately from other parts of our document, we call "the Numbers way".

When we are taking advantage of "the Numbers way", we can reference blocks of data by their table names, just as we would reference a named range in Excel. We may turn on the "Use Header Cell Names as References" preference in Numbers > Preferences, as Barry suggests, but it's not necessary to do so in order to take advantage of referencing by table name, and I prefer to not use the header reference option myself.

Jerry