CONTENTS
Heading 2 Example
Heading 2 Example
Reading Time: minutes remaining
by Jason Morrell
February 28, 2015
Up there amongst the big questions for Excel newbies is
’How big is Excel?
‘How many rows does an Excel worksheet have?’
'How many columns in an Excel worksheet?'
Quick Answer: 1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns!
That's more than you’ll ever use. Keep reading to find how to see this for yourself.
RELATED
POST:
Handy shortcuts to get around your spreadsheet in a flash
RELATED POST:
How to resize columns and rows without going one-by-one
1. How columns and rows are referenced
All the columns are lettered and all the rows are numbered.
Fig 01: Columns are lettered and rows are numbered
If you were to scroll across the page you reach column Z, then the letters start doubling up with AA, AB and so on. It’s fair to say that if you started scrolling across or down the page now, you would still be scrolling this time tomorrow!
Fig 02: Column Z moves to column AA
2. How many rows and columns are there in Excel
Try this.
1. Open a blank spreadsheet.
2. Hold down CTRL and press the right arrow key(cursor key) on the keyboard. You are taken to the right-most column. In the modern versions of Excel this is columnXFD, which is16,384 columns. In older versions of Excel (2003 and prior) the last column wasIVwhich is256 columns. Which is still plenty!
Fig 03: The last column is labelled XFD
3. Hold down CTRL and press the down arrow key(cursor key) on the keyboard. You are taken to the bottom row. In the modern versions of Excel there are1,048,576 rows. In older versions of Excel (2003 and prior) there were65,536 rows.
Fig 04: Last column in Excel is 1, 048, 576
4. To return to cell A1, press CTRL and HOME together. This shortcut works in most programs. For example, in Microsoft Word, pressing CTRL HOME will take you to the top of page 1. In Microsoft PowerPoint, pressing CTRL HOME will return you to slide 1.
So as you can see there are more than enough columns and rows.
Several years ago, I met somebody who did run out of rows! Okay, his situation was unusual.
He ran an energy company. Live energy price data was fed into his system every couple of seconds and filtered through to his spreadsheets. His software used this data to buy low and sell high on autopilot. But every couple of weeks he ran out of rows.
But I'm sure you'll be fine!
What do you think?
RELATED POST:
How to write your first formula and ensure it works!
3. What next?
I hope you found plenty of value in this post.I'd love to hear your biggest takeaway in the comments below together with any questions you may have.
Have a fantastic day.
About the author
Jason Morrell
Jason Morrell is a professional trainer, consultant and course creator who lives on the glorious Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia.
He helps people of all levels unleash and leverage the power contained within Microsoft Office by delivering training, troubleshooting services and taking on client projects. He loves to simplify tricky concepts and provide helpful, proven, actionable advice that can be implemented for quick results.
Purely for amusem*nt he sometimes talks about himself in the third person.
SHARE
