Where Did My Column Letters and Row Numbers Go in Excel for Office 365?

It’s fairly easy to take the row numbers and column letters for granted in Microsoft Excel.

They are almost always visible when you are editing a worksheet, and you probably use them as a way to find specific rows or columns that contain data that you need to edit.

But if those row numbers or column letters are gone, then you may be wondering how to get them back.

Our tutorial below will show you how to restore missing row numbers and column letters in Microsoft Excel for Office 365.

How to Display Column and Row Headings in Excel for Office 365

1. Open your file.
2. Select the Page Layout tab.
3. Check the box next to View under Headings.

By default, there is a row of letters at the top and a column of numbers on the left side of your Excel spreadsheet. This information makes it easy for you to identify particular cells when either referencing the data to someone else or using a formula.

But if you’ve opened a spreadsheet in Excel for Office 365 and found that those column letters and row numbers are gone, then that could be a problem for your workflow.

Fortunately, this doesn’t mean that anything is wrong with Excel, but rather that someone has adjusted a setting in the application. Our guide below will show you how to return these column and row headings to view.

How to Show Column Letters and Row Numbers in Microsoft Excel

The steps in this article were performed in the desktop version of Microsoft Excel for Office 365, but will work in most other recent versions of Excel as well.

Step 1: Open the file in Microsoft Excel.

Step 2: Select the Page Layout tab at the top of the window.

Step 3: Click the box to the left of View under Headings to restore the column letters and row numbers.

Now that you know how to display row and column headings in Microsoft Excel you will find it much easier to reference specific cells in your spreadsheet when you are creating formulas.

More Information on How to Display the Row and Column Headings in an Excel Spreadsheet

You will notice in the Headings group of the ribbon that there is also a Print option there as well.

If you would like to include the row numbers or column letters when you print your spreadsheet, then you could choose to select that option as well.

If you have enabled the headings and discover that your Excel columns are numbers instead of letters, then you might need to change a setting on the Excel Options menu.

If you click the File tab at the top-left corner of the window, then click the Options button at the bottom of the left column it will open a new Excel Options window.

Select the Formulas tab on the left side of the window, then uncheck the R1C1 reference style box in the Working with formulas section. When that option is enabled, Excel shows numbers for columns instead of letters.

You can then click the OK button at the bottom of the window to return to your spreadsheet where you should see the usual numbers on the left side of the window and letters and the top of the spreadsheet.

Have you opened a Microsoft Word file, only to find that there are gridlines there, too? Find out how to remove gridlines in Word if you don’t need them for your document.

Additional Reading