Hi Will, and thanks for your question. As an example I have in Column A: A1:”Fruits”, A2:”Apple”,A3:”Cherry”,A4:”Pear”. In the ‘Managed Names’ Window, click on the ‘Add’ button, then enter as name ‘fruits’, then in the ‘Range or formula expression’ enter “OFFSET($A$2,0,0,COUNTA($A:$A)-1,1)”(without the quotes).
The COUNTA($A:$A)-1 counts all the cells with a value in the column A, minus 1 to exclude the header in A1 (“Fruits”), if you don’t put any header you can omit the ‘-1’. The OFFSET here is simply returning a range with a height of n rows, n being the number of values in column A -1, and a width of 1 Column, with the top-left cell being at $A$2 with no offset (0,0).
Now in any other column you can access the elements of the named range with “=INDEX(fruits,2)” -> Cherry. The range will expand when adding e.g. “Banana” in Cell A5.To verify the number of values listed in the range ‘fruits’, you can do “=COUNTA(fruits)” in any cell and see it growing when you add a new fruit in the list. And as a proof that it is not simply counting the non-empty cells in column A, try in a cell “=INDEX(fruits;5) and you’ll get a ‘#Ref’ error because there is no elements at index 5 of the ‘fruits’ range.
It is confusing because the named range will not appear in the ‘Name Box’ drop down list, but you can still access it. Aso, when selecting the name ‘fruits’ in the ‘Manage Names’ window it will refer to the entire Column A). Another example is to select a cell (outside your range’s column) and go in “Data/Validity”, then select ‘Cell Range’ and enter ‘fruits’ in the name of the cell range. The cell will then be populated with a drop down list bound to your ‘fruit’ named range.
I am calling it a named range, but it is actually only a cell range with a reference hence it not being displayed in the ‘Name Box’ or in the ‘Range names’ section in the Navigator.
Please let me know if that answers you question. Cheers