Excel can look intimidating because it opens as a wall of empty boxes. That wall is actually the most useful thing about it. By the end of this page you will know exactly what those boxes are called, how to find any one of them, and why they are laid out that way.
When you open Excel you get a grid: a page divided into thousands of small rectangles. Nothing is broken and nothing is missing. Excel simply has no idea yet what you want to keep track of, so it gives you empty boxes and lets you decide.
The grid is made of three things, and that is genuinely all you need to learn today. Columns run up and down. Rows run left to right. Where a column and a row cross, you get one box — a cell. Everything you ever type into Excel goes into a cell.
- Column B
- Row 3
- Cell B3 — where they cross
- The Name Box shows the address
Because columns have letters and rows have numbers, every single box has its own short address: the column letter followed by the row number. The box in column A, row 1 is called A1. The box three rows down in column B is B3. Excel always shows you the address of the box you have clicked, in the small white slot just above the column letters.
Try it yourself
Open Excel and choose Blank workbook.
A workbook is just the file. Inside it, the grid you see is one sheet of that file.
Click once on any box, then look at the top-left slot above the letters.
That slot is the Name Box, and it is showing you the address of the box you just clicked.
Type your own name and press Enter.
Whatever you type lands in the selected cell, and Enter moves you down one row so you can keep going.
Click the letter B at the very top.
Clicking a letter selects the whole column. Clicking a number on the left selects the whole row. This is how you work with a lot of boxes at once.
Type B3 into the Name Box and press Enter.
Excel jumps straight to that box. Proof that the address is a real way to navigate, not just a label.
Words people use
That is the whole idea. Columns, rows, cells, and an address for every cell. Every other thing Excel does — totalling, sorting, charts — is built on top of those four words, so it is worth being comfortable with them before moving on.
Check yourself
If you can say yes to each of these, you are ready for the next lesson.
- I can point to a column, a row and a cell on screen
- I know that a cell address is a letter followed by a number
- I can find the Name Box and use it to jump to a cell
- I can select a whole column or a whole row in one click