How can I get the column letter in Google Sheets?

By /

To obtain the column letter in Google Sheets, you can use the “COLUMN” function followed by the column number. This will return the letter corresponding to that column. For example, if you want to find the letter for column 5, the function would be “=COLUMN(5)” and the result would be “E”. This can be useful for referencing specific columns in formulas or for organizing and manipulating data within a spreadsheet.

Get Column Letter in Google Sheets (With Example)

You can use the following syntax to get the column letter that corresponds to a specific column number in Google Sheets:

=SUBSTITUTE(ADDRESS(1,8,4),"1","")

This particular formula will return the column letter that corresponds to column 8 in the spreadsheet.

For example, this formula will return “H” since this corresponds to the letter of column 8.

The following example shows how to use this syntax in practice.

Example: How to Get Column Letter in Google Sheets

Suppose we would like to return the column letter of the eighth column in a Google Sheets spreadsheet.

We can type the following formula into cell A1 to do so:

=SUBSTITUTE(ADDRESS(1,8,4),"1","")

The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:

Google Sheets get column letter

The formula returns “H” since this is the column letter that corresponds to the eighth column.

To get the column letter of a different column, simply change the 8 to a different value in the formula.

For example, suppose we instead use a 2 in the formula:

=SUBSTITUTE(ADDRESS(1,2,4),"1","")

The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:

How This Formula Works

Recall the formula that we used to get the letter that corresponds to the eighth column in Google Sheets:

=SUBSTITUTE(ADDRESS(1,8,4),"1","")

Here is how this formula works:

First, we use ADDRESS(1,8,4) to get the address of the cell in row 1, column 8, and we use 4 to specify that we’d like a .

This returns H1.

Then, we use the SUBSTITUTE function to substitute the 1 with a blank.

This returns H.

Additional Resources

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in Google Sheets:

x

Related terms:

  1. How do I get the column letter in Google Sheets (with example)?
  2. What is the VBA code to convert a column number to letter?
  3. How do I filter one column in Google Sheets based on values in another column?
  4. How can I use Google Sheets to count the number of entries in one column if another column meets a specific criteria?
  5. # Check if One Column Value Exists in Another Column in Google Sheets
  6. How can I filter one column in Google Sheets based on another column?
  7. How can I count a column in Google Sheets if another column meets certain criteria?
  8. How can I extract the first letter of each word in Excel?
  9. How do I calculate the letter grade in Excel?
  10. How can I use Excel to find the first letter in a string?