"jiang" wrote in message
...
Thanks for your explanation on the Ctrl-Shift-Enter function.

Your reply has intrigued me into more questions -

1) if 1:1 etc. refers to a row, is there a function to refer to a column
in
general?


But of course <g

A:A, B:B, etc.


2) i can't locate the explanation of "Column" in Excel Help (only
"Columns"-are there any difference in these two functions?).


Really, I find the COLUMN worksheetfunction in Excel help very easily.

Columns is a VBA range property (I fear I am leading you down a path that
goes on for ever <vbg).


If it means "to
find the column no. which satisfies certain conditions", then the
IF(2:2<0,COLUMN(2:2)) should give a result of "3", but instead it returns
a
value of "false".


Don't forget that IF is a single value function, if you use an array in that
function it has to be array-entered (Ctrl-Shift-Enter). If you do that with
your formula, you will not get #VALUE!. You won't get a meaningful answer in
this case, as it returns an array of values, and it will just show the first
of that array. This type of formula would be used in another function that
works upon an array, such as INDEX in my previous example.