By default there is a row of letters at the top, and a column of numbers at 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.
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Matt Jacobs has been working as an IT consultant for small businesses since receiving his Master’s degree in 2003. While he still does some consulting work, his primary focus now is on creating technology support content for SupportYourTech.com.
His work can be found on many websites and focuses on topics such as Microsoft Office, Apple devices, Android devices, Photoshop and more.