Glossary

Named range

A human-readable name assigned to a cell or range in Excel, so formulas can reference TaxRate instead of $B$1.

A named range gives a cell or range a label you can use in formulas, so =Price*TaxRate is clearer and more maintainable than =B2*$F$1. Names are defined per workbook (or per sheet) and update automatically if the underlying cells move, which makes formulas more robust to edits.

Named ranges are stored in the workbook structure of XLSX and XLS, so they survive in those formats but vanish on export to CSV. They're also relevant to workbook comparison: a renamed or redefined named range can change what a formula points to without the formula text changing, which is the kind of subtle difference a careful diff of two models needs to catch.

Compare two spreadsheets

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