It may be a surprise to learn that you can define names of cells in Microsoft Excel instead of using the letter and number combinations. This makes it friendlier to read and understand. For example, in our sheet below, typically if you wanted to calculate profit you’d need to use the = sign and then say D2-E2 . But unless you can see the sheet and the reference numbers that won’t make much sense to someone reading it. But instead, you can name the different columns that you want to run the formula on. Here’s how to do that. What to do: Using the example in our spreadsheet or a similar spreadsheet, highlight all the revenue numbers in the sheet and then in the top menu navigate to Formulas > Defined names > Define name . It should automatically recognize the term “revenue”. Click Ok . Next highlight all the numbers in the cost column of the spreadsheet and click on Formulas > Defined names > Define name . Click Ok again. Now if you go back to the profit column and enter the = sign, you can use the formula =revenue – cost instead of =D2-E2 , which is so much easier to understand. What’s more the profit column will be filled all the way down and if you look at the top of the spreadsheet, you’ll see the formula is simply revenue – cost . Dominic Bayley / Foundry That’s a wrap for this Try This. If you’d like more tips and tricks delivered to your inbox be sure to subscribe to our PCWorld Try This newsletter