Beginner · Lesson 1 of 12

How a spreadsheet is laid out

Cells have addresses

A spreadsheet is a big grid. Columns run down and use letters. Rows run across and use numbers. Each box is a cell, and its address is its column and then its row, so B3 means column B, row 3.

Ranges are groups of cells

A range is a block of cells, written with a colon between the first and last cell. The colon means "through".

Good data has a clear shape

Put headings in the top row, keep one kind of thing in each column, and use one row per record. Almost every tool in Excel works better when data looks like this.