You do not need a coulmn function to do that

Check Match function in help . Youu formula would always begin from Column A
something like this

=match("Apples",Sheet1!A3:J3,0)

Its important that you start with column A even though your range does not
begin from column "A"

"sharonm" wrote:

Hello,

I am using the Column function to get the Column number from a different
seperate workbook like the following:

=COLUMN('L:\My Documents\[LookupData.xls]Sheet1'!$O$2)

The above returns 15. (LookupData is a different workbook than where this
formula is being used.)

Would anyone know if I could return the column number where a reference
value from the current workbook is contained in the workbook LookupData. For
example, I have "Apples" in CellA2 in the current workbook, how can I get the
column number in LookupData which contains the text "Apples"?

Thanks in advance!