Now before we jump in and start to master the conditional or logic based functions that are found within
Microsoft Excel.
I want to introduce you to a concept that you're going to work with through out your career of using
functions or formulas inside of Excel.
This deals with a concept called name ranges.
Now typically I'm going to give you an example here.
Typically when you want to be able to let's say sum up a range of cells for example looking at the example
file that I have opened in front of you right now I've got some weekly data sales figures.
Week One two three and four.
Now at the bottom of each of those columns I've got a weekly total.
And I'd like to be able to just sum up each week right.
This way we can compare values between the various weeks and we have that make up the sales figures
.
December 2015.
Now typically if I'm going to do that the way that I would sum this up would look something like this
right here.
I would say equals some using the SUM function.
There it is inside the little dropdown menu the intellisense I mean hit my tab key and now I'm going
to grab the range of cells that I want to sum up in this case it'll be B5 through benign.
Now this is a very standard approach very typical approach to summing up a range of cells.
And really we do this by grabbing the range of cells that we want to work with.
Now an alternative to this is called a name range.
Imagine rather than summing up B5 through B 9 I want to sum up a group of cells that's called Week 1
and that's it.
And excel knows that when I reference something called Week 1 that is this group of cells right here
.
This is a name range.
Now what's the purpose of a name range.
Well very simply it's another way to reference a group of cells.
I'm no longer referencing them by column and row address but I'm referencing them by a name that we've
established for that group of cells.
Take a look.
This is super simple to create.
I'm going to do it for week two.
So first step in order to create a name range.
You've got to select the cells that you want to name.
So I'm going to grab cells C5 through C9.
This is the week to data.
I'm then going to go up to just next door to my formula bar just to the left.
You currently see I have my name box and currently it's telling me my active cell is C5.
Well I'm going to change that.
I mean it could get in there where it says C5 and I mean change this two week underscore to not using
an underscore because name ranges will not allow spaces in the names.
But it's that simple give it a name like the cells give it a name.
I'm going to hit my anarchy.
Make sure you do hit your enter key after you're done naming the range.
And now I'm going to jump down here to see 10 that I'm going to perform another some equals some up
and my prince sees but rather than grabbing Sci-Fi through C9 what am I going to sum up week and look
at that.
It's right there in my Intellisense week underscore I'll give that a double click.
Close my parentheses hit my anarchy and I've now summed up that range of cells utilizing a name range
really simple.
Again highlight a group of cells jump up to the top where you got your name box.
Let me change this one two week underscore three.
There were no spaces inside your names.
Tim my enter key.
And now I can use that in my formulas.
Equals open in parentheses.
Here's weak under score 3.
That click DoubleClick clause my parentheses at my Enter key.
And I've now summed up that range of cells by its name get really simple to create.
I like group of cells give him a name.
Use that name within your formulas.
They can actually use it for more than just formulas.
If I jump up to the name box and click on the dropdown arrow I get a list of all the name ranges and
if I select one of them it'll take me to that location.
So it's also a really quick way to navigate these larger sets of data.
Give it a name range and allow you to just select from a pick list.
Now this is something I'm going to continue to use as we go through this course.
We could sum up a range of cells by column and row address or you can quickly give them a name and then
use that.
So try this out.
Open up the exercise file that comes with this course.
Grab a group of cells like the week one day of the Week two data whatever you want.
Given a name and then use it in a formula.
Try it out