MS Excel: How To Use Ms Excel Reference Styles

Excel A1-Style References

Excel A1 style references is very common among Excel users and this is a default reference style of Excel worksheets. This form of Excel referencing style is used by most people who are using Excel for their work.

MS Excel’s A1 style reference is basically used to represent the row number and column references respectively. This A1 reference style is made up of numbers and letters. A good example is shown below image:

Excel R1C1-Style References

Excel R1C style references is not very common among Excel users and also not a default reference style of Excel worksheet. This form of Excel referencing style is used by rare people but this is very convenient for people who are using Excel for their work.

MS Excel’s R1C1 style reference is basically used to represent the R for row number and C for column number. This R1C1 reference style is very good to use. An example of R1C1 is shown in below image:

Excel R1C1 referencing is used because it allows Excel users to refer to a worksheet cell that belongs to a number of rows or columns with respect to the current cell. This can be specified by using square brackets that encase the numeric part of the reference.

If the number of columns or rows escaped, this informs Excel to use the current column of the row number.

Example: Let suppose the current cell is R3C3(C3, In term of A1-Style) then:

• R[2]C[2]: This will refer to the R5C5 cells of the Excel Worksheet which means Add 2 rows and 2 columns to the current cell. (E5, In term of A1-Style)
• RC[-2]: This will refer to the R3C1 cells of the Excel Worksheet which means this will use the current row and subtract 2 columns from the current cell. (A3, In term of A1-Style)
• R[2]C1: This will refer to the R5C1 cells of the Excel Worksheet which means Adding 2 rows to the current cell and using absolute 1 column. (A5, In term of A1-Style)

How to enable R1C1 referencing style Option

Excel referencing style is used when this option is enabled in the current Excel version. For that, you just simply need to check the R1C1 referencing style option at the top.

R1C1 referencing style option is available at the top menu and in the Formula section.

A1 style referencing is selected by default on Excel and the columns of the Excel worksheet are labeled with the letter but if you want to use R1C1 style referencing in Excel worksheet then you have to enable the option and as a result, now column will be labeled as numbers instead of letters in the worksheet of Excel.