Recently I got this query from a reader on whether there’s a formula to get the column letter instead of the column index number in Google Sheets.
For example, column #7 in Google Sheets is also column G.
While the column letter is always visible in the header, there is no direct formula to get this call him later in the cell (while there is a formula to get the column index number – COLUMN() function).
But it can easily be done using a simple combination of formulas in Google Sheets.
In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to quickly get the column letter in a cell in Google Sheets.
Get the Column Letter in Google Sheets
For the purpose of this tutorial, let’s say I want to find out the column letter for the 7th column.
Now there is the address formula in Google Sheets that will give me the cell address if I enter the row index number and the column index number.
Since I already know that the column index number is 7 I can use the below formula:
=Address(1,7)
Here in keeping the rule number is 1 for the sake of simplicity.
The above formula returns $G$1, which is not what I want.
So I would modify my formula a little bit so that I can get rid of the dollar signs in the cell reference.
=Address(1,7,4)
Adding four as the third argument tells the formula that I’m not looking for absolute cell reference. instead, I’m looking for a relative cell reference (where no $ is added in the cell reference).
=Substitute(Address(1,7,4),"1","")
The above formula uses the substitute function to replace one after the column letter with a null string, which ends up giving me just the column letter.
So this is how you can easily use a simple formula in Google Sheets to get the column letter using the column index number.
I hope you found this tutorial useful.
