Jetformat

Give a reporting cell a named reference in Excel

A workbook automation can be easier to understand when an important cell has a meaningful defined name. The name documents which value a later step intends to read.

Published · 2 min read

By allentatakai

Choose the target sheet and reference carefully. Quote dollar signs in shell arguments so an absolute cell reference reaches the CLI unchanged.

A focused terminal workflow

jetformat excel add-name finance.xlsx --name Revenue --ref 'Summary!$B$2' -o named.xlsx

Use an explicit worksheet reference for the new name. Quote references containing dollar signs in the shell so absolute cell references survive unchanged.

Acceptance checks

List the saved workbook’s names and inspect the reference. A defined name documents a destination; it does not verify the cell’s value or formula.

Run excel names on the saved workbook and compare the name and reference.

Before repeating the operation

These examples use local sample filenames. Substitute your own paths and check jetformat excel add-name --help against the installed version before running the task. Put paths containing spaces inside quotes.

Writing an Office document uses one credit per command. See the billing guide for the current rules.

Keep the input revision with the result so a later reviewer can reproduce the decision. For a write operation, choose a new output path first; use overwrite flags only when replacing a previously reviewed result is intentional.

See the excel add-name options and examples for the command reference. Browse related excel commands when the next step requires a different operation.

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