I have a table with monthly and annual payments for several years.

I named the cells in the monthly payment column MP1, MP2, MP3, etc.
This works fine.

When I tried to name the cell for the first annual payment to AP1,
Excel jumped way out to cell AP1.

I couldn't find this in the help, but it appears that I cannot use a
name that is a valid cell reference. Is that correct?

A little more research indicates that what Excel considers a valid
column name is A to IV. It will not allow me to name a call IV1, but
it will allow IX1. That's why it allowed MP1.

Is this correct?

Are there any other quirks?

--
Running Excel 2000 SP-3 on Windows 2000

I'm sure that there are lots of other quirks <bg.

But your explanation is right--and don't forget cell addresses when you're in
R1C1 reference style.

And if you ever plan to upgrade to xl2007 (with 16k columns), you'll want to
stay away from anything that will look like an address then (MP1 will cause
trouble).

Maybe you can include an underscore in your names:

_MP1, _MP2, ...

or some other unique identifier that may even add some mnemonic significance???

LurfysMa wrote:

I have a table with monthly and annual payments for several years.

I named the cells in the monthly payment column MP1, MP2, MP3, etc.
This works fine.

When I tried to name the cell for the first annual payment to AP1,
Excel jumped way out to cell AP1.

I couldn't find this in the help, but it appears that I cannot use a
name that is a valid cell reference. Is that correct?

A little more research indicates that what Excel considers a valid
column name is A to IV. It will not allow me to name a call IV1, but
it will allow IX1. That's why it allowed MP1.

Is this correct?

Are there any other quirks?

--
Running Excel 2000 SP-3 on Windows 2000

--

Dave Peterson

Your assumptions are correct.

Other quirks.....?

Too numerous to list here, but you will eventually run into many as you use
Excel more.

I will mention one frequent problem users run into.

Merged cells cause no end of problems with copying, pasting, sorting, filtering,
autofitting and other operations of a similar nature.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP


On Sat, 23 Dec 2006 08:24:36 -0800, LurfysMa wrote:

I have a table with monthly and annual payments for several years.

I named the cells in the monthly payment column MP1, MP2, MP3, etc.
This works fine.

When I tried to name the cell for the first annual payment to AP1,
Excel jumped way out to cell AP1.

I couldn't find this in the help, but it appears that I cannot use a
name that is a valid cell reference. Is that correct?

A little more research indicates that what Excel considers a valid
column name is A to IV. It will not allow me to name a call IV1, but
it will allow IX1. That's why it allowed MP1.

Is this correct?

Are there any other quirks?

On Sat, 23 Dec 2006 11:10:48 -0600, Dave Peterson
wrote:

I'm sure that there are lots of other quirks <bg.

But your explanation is right--and don't forget cell addresses when you're in
R1C1 reference style.

And if you ever plan to upgrade to xl2007 (with 16k columns), you'll want to
stay away from anything that will look like an address then (MP1 will cause
trouble).

So the geniuses at MSFT built support for 16k columns, something the
average user will never need, but could not solve the basic
architecture problem that allows this confusion in the first place. Or
even uodate the help file to clearly describe it.

I guess they needed those 16k columns to tally their stock options.

Thanks

--
Running Excel 2000 SP-3 on Windows 2000

On Sat, 23 Dec 2006 09:17:11 -0800, Gord Dibben <gorddibbATshawDOTca
wrote:

Your assumptions are correct.

Other quirks.....?

Too numerous to list here, but you will eventually run into many as you use
Excel more.

I just meant quirks related to cell references. I realize the complete
tome of quirks would break Wikipedia. ;-)

Thanks

--
Running Excel 2000 SP-3 on Windows 2000