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

Data Analysis

  • How to create dynamic reference table name in Excel
  • How to count table columns in Excel
  • Remove Duplicates Example in Excel
  • How to sum a total in multiple Excel tables
  • Conflicting Multiple Conditional Formatting Rules in Excel

References

  • Merge tables with VLOOKUP in Excel
  • How to use Excel MATCH Function
  • How to use Excel ROW Function
  • How to get first row number in range in Excel
  • To count total rows in a range in Excel

Data Validations

  • Excel Data validation date in specific year
  • Excel Data validation allow weekday only
  • Excel Data validation no punctuation
  • Excel Data validation date in next 30 days
  • Excel Data validation whole percentage only

How to get last row in text data in Excel

by

To get the last relative position (i.e. last row, last column) for text data (with or without empty cells), you can use the MATCH function. See example below:

Formula

=MATCH(bigtext,range)

Explanation

In the example shown, the formula in E5 is:

=MATCH(REPT("z",255),B4:B11)

How this formula works

This formula uses the MATCH function in approximate match mode to locate the last text value in a range. Approximate match enabled by setting by the 3rd argument in MATCH to 1, or omitting this argument, which defaults to 1.

The lookup value is a so-called “big text” (sometimes abbreviated “bigtext”) which is intentionally a value “bigger” than any value that will appear in the range. When working with text, which sorts alphabetically, this means a text value that will always appear at the end of the alphabetic sort order.

Since this formula matches text, the idea is to construct a lookup value that will never occur in actual text, but will aways be last. To do that, we use the REPT function to repeat the letter “z” 255 times. The number 255 represents the largest number of characters that MATCH allows in a lookup value.

When MATCH can’t find this value, it will “step back” to the last text value in the range, and return the position of that value.

Note: this approach works fine with empty cells in the range, but is not reliable with mixed data that includes both numbers and text.

Last relative position vs last row number

When building advanced formulas that create dynamic ranges, it’s often necessary to figure out the last location of data in a list. Depending on the data, this could be the last row with data, the last column with data, or the intersection of both. Note: we want the last *relative position* inside a given range, not the row number on the worksheet:

Post navigation

Previous Post:

How to calculate project complete percentage 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

  • AND function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation
  • How to use Excel NOT Function
  • Nested IF function example in Excel
  • Check multiple cells are equal in Excel
  • How to return blank in place of #DIV/0! error in Excel

Date Time

  • How to calculate Next working/business day in Excel
  • How to get year from date in Excel
  • How to calculate most recent day of week in Excel
  • Convert decimal minutes to Excel time
  • Get project end date in Excel

Grouping

  • Map inputs to arbitrary values in Excel
  • Group times into 3 hour buckets in Excel
  • Group times into unequal buckets in Excel
  • How to randomly assign data to groups in Excel
  • Map text to numbers in Excel

General

  • How to Create Calendar in Excel
  • Zoom Worksheet in Excel
  • How to generate random times at specific intervals in Excel
  • How to password protect excel sheet?
  • How to increase by percentage in Excel
© 2025 xlsoffice . All Right Reserved. | Teal Smiles | Abbreviations And Their Meaning