Skip to content
Free Excel Tutorials
  • Home
  • Excel For Beginners
  • Excel Intermediate
  • Advanced Excel For Experts

Data Analysis

  • How To Remove Duplicates In Excel Column Or Row?
  • Subtotal function in Excel
  • How to Sort by Color in Excel
  • Reverse List in Excel
  • Understanding Anova in Excel

References

  • How to use Excel LOOKUP Function
  • How to get address of named range in Excel
  • Count rows with at least n matching values
  • INDEX function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation
  • Create hyperlink with VLOOKUP in Excel

Data Validations

  • How To Create Drop-down List in Excel
  • Excel Data validation allow uppercase only
  • Excel Data validation date in specific year
  • Data validation must not exist in list
  • Excel Data validation only dates between

How to get last column number in range in Excel

by

You can get the last column in a range with a formula based on the COLUMN function. See example below:

Formula

=MIN(COLUMN(range))+COLUMNS(range)-1

Note: When given a single cell reference, the COLUMN function returns the column number for that reference. However, when given a range that contains multiple columns, the COLUMN function will return an array that contains all column numbers for the range.

Explanation

In the example shown, the formula in cell F5 is:

=MIN(COLUMN(data))+COLUMNS(data)-1

where data is a named range for B5:D10

Worked Example:   Exact match lookup with SUMPRODUCT in Excel

How this formula works

If you want only the first column number, you can use the MIN function to extract just the first column number, which will be the lowest number in the array.

Once we have the first column, we can just add the total columns in the range and subtract 1, to get the last column number.

Worked Example:   How to count table columns in Excel

Index version

Instead of MIN, you can also use INDEX to get the last row number:

=COLUMN(INDEX(data,1,1))+COLUMNS(data)-1

This is possibly a bit faster for large ranges, since INDEX just supplied a single cell to COLUMN.

Simple version

When a formula returns an array result, Excel will display the first item in the array if the formula is entered in a single cell. This means that in practice, you can often just use a simplified version of the formula:

=COLUMN(data)+COLUMNS(data)-1

But be aware that this will return an array for a multi-column range.

Worked Example:   Merge tables with VLOOKUP in Excel

Inside formulas, it’s sometimes necessary to make sure you are dealing with only one item, and not an array. In that case, you’ll want to use the full version above.

Post navigation

Previous Post:

How to generate random date between two dates in Excel

Next Post:

Popularly Used Excel Functions and their examples

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Learn Basic Excel

Ribbon
Workbook
Worksheets
Format Cells
Find & Select
Sort & Filter
Templates
Print
Share
Protect
Keyboard Shortcuts

Categories

  • Charts
  • Data Analysis
  • Data Validation
  • Excel Functions
    • Cube Functions
    • Database Functions
    • Date and Time Functions
    • Engineering Functions
    • Financial Functions
    • Information Functions
    • Logical Functions
    • Lookup and Reference Functions
    • Math and Trig Functions
    • Statistical Functions
    • Text Functions
    • Web Functions
  • Excel VBA
  • Excel Video Tutorials
  • Formatting
  • Grouping
  • Others

Logical Functions

  • How to use Excel OR Function
  • How to use IFS function in Excel
  • How to use Excel AND Function
  • OR function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation
  • NOT function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation

Date Time

  • TIMEVALUE function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation
  • WEEKNUM function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation
  • Get work hours between dates custom schedule in Excel
  • MONTH function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation
  • Calculate years between dates in Excel

Grouping

  • Map text to numbers in Excel
  • How to randomly assign data to groups in Excel
  • Calculate conditional mode with criteria in Excel
  • Group times into unequal buckets in Excel
  • Running count group by n size in Excel

General

  • Transpose: Switch ‘Rows to Columns’ or ‘Columns to Rows’ in Excel
  • How to create dynamic named range with INDEX in Excel
  • How to generate random number between two numbers in Excel
  • How to calculate percent of goal in Excel
  • How to Delete Cells, Row and Rows in Excel
© 2023 xlsoffice . All Right Reserved. | Teal Smiles | Abbreviations And Their Meaning