Excel - Microsoft Excel Indirect Function

Description

The Excel Indirect function takes a text string and converts this into a cell reference. 

Excel does not understand the text string "B1" to mean a reference to the cell B1. Therefore, if you extract or build up a reference to a cell or range using text, you will need to use the Indirect function to convert this into a reference that Excel can understand. 

The format of the function is : 

INDIRECT( ref_text, a1 ) 

where the arguments are as follows: 

Excel Reference Styles

Excel understands two different styles of referencing for cells and ranges. These are described in the table below : 

Note that you need to tell Excel which style of referencing you are using. This is set by checking, or unchecking, the option 'R1C1 referencing style' in the Excel options menu (found in Tools->Options->General in Excel 2003 or MSOffice Button->Excel Options->Formulas in Excel 2007). 

By default, Excel uses the A1 style of referencing, and the columns of your spreadsheet are labelled with letters. However, if you select the R1C1 option, you will notice that the top of your Worksheet columns display numbers, instead of letters. 

INDIRECT Function Examples

The following spreadsheets show simple examples of the Excel INDIRECT function. The format of the function is shown in the spreadsheet on the left and the results are shown in the spreadsheet on the right.