Excel Riddle

If you treat it as an alternate numbering system, like hexadecimal, you can convert any column name fairly quickly. Convert all your letters to their numerical values (A=1, B=2, etc). Your rightmost column is your "singles", so that number is what it is. The number to the left is how many times you've cycled through your singles, so mulitply it by 26. The number to its left is how many times you've cycled through your "twentysixes", so multiply it by 26 twice. So, XFD is: (24)(26^2)+(6)(26)+(4) (16224)+(156)+(4) 16384

Thanks, that works great. Using your formula, CDF = (26^2)3 + (26)4 + 6 = 2028 + 104 + 6 = 2138

Looks good, thanks.

That was so easy, a Caveman could have done it!

(grin)

:-P

Just call me Ugg.

It's not too often you count using base 26...

XFD is 2^14

It is simply conversion from one base to other,like from Binary to Decimal, Octal -> Decimal etc.
In XFD it is from Base 26 -> Decimal.
D is in the [x1]in position = 4;
F is in [X26] position = 26 x 6 = 156;
X is in [26 Squared ie [26 x 26] pos so 26 x 26 x 24 = 16224

16224 + 156 + 4 = 263218336

You can use a feature in Excel to do this. See: http://www.techonthenet.com/excel/formulas/column. php Useful explanation for working it out though!

I doubt who would really use that many columns in one Excel spreadsheet. This is crazy. I would definitely use normalized database tables instead of putting everything in a spreadsheet.

I'm sorry, I had failed to consider every possible situation possible as you have obviously done to determine the merit of the question. I beg your forgivness, but since you are obviously God, I'm sure you'll just let it go.

16384

number 16384

formula: =column()