By default, Excel has column names referred by alphabets. A column name does not show what this column has in it. Therefore, you often tend to rename the column according to your ease. As Excel denotes columns with alphabets, numbers are used for rows. You can change the name of rows as well.
Today, you will come to know how to rename a column in Excel when you want to name it as per your needs. Let’s dive in to see how it happens:
How to Rename a Column in Excel?
For whatever reason, renaming a column in Excel is possible. This section covers the procedure that explains how to rename a column in Excel. Suppose, you choose Column 3, it will show the Column Name as R1C3. Let’s see how you to rename this column name.
- First, choose column 3 and click on Column Name R1C3.
- Now, you need to remove the Column Name R1C3.
- Enter the Column Name you need. In this example, we will add Employee.
- Now, press ENTER key.
You will notice that Column 3 has been renamed to Employee.
How to Change the Name of a Column Header in Excel?
As you know, Excel denotes column names with alphabets such as A, B, C, and so on. For any reason, you can change the column name to whatever you like. Excel does not let you change header names. If you need to rename the column header in Excel, here is the process to follow:
- Click on the first row of the sheet and add a new row above that first row.
- Add the name you like in the new row added.
- You can highlight the column names and you can increase the text size, add background color to the cells, or make the text bold in the row.
- Once the new row and column header names are added, you can hide the default column header names. For this, follow the steps:
- Open the File tab or else click on the Office button.
- Choose Options from the left panel.
- Open the Advanced option from the Excel Options window.
- Now, scroll down to the Display options for the sheet. Uncheck the box for Show row and column headers.
- You will notice the column and row headers are not visible. To make them appear, re-check the box in the above step.
How to Rename a Column in Excel with Advanced Option?
This method simply shows the procedure to hide the default column and row names. Apart from that you can even change the dataset heading. Here we will use the Advanced option in Excel. For this, follow these steps:
- First, open the File tab.
- Choose the Options menu.
- The Excel Options window will open up.
- Click on the Advanced option from the window.
- Navigate to the Display options for this worksheet option.
- Now, uncheck the box given adjacent to the option Show row and column headers.
- Press OK.
- You will notice the dataset header appears as the column name.
How to Rename a Column in Excel with Display Bar?
This final method shows the process of using Display Bar for renaming a column in Excel. Follow these steps to check the whole procedure:
- Suppose, you click on column B, it will appear as B1 in the display bar.
- It is not clear as we don’t know anything about the data in this column.
- Remove the name B1.
- Rename it as Employee.
- Press ENTER key.
- Ultimately, you will see that the column is renamed from B1 to Employee.
Summary:
Today, you have learned about how to rename a column in Excel by using multiple approaches. Excel has by default names of columns and rows that can be changed later according to your needs. Try any of the above methods and you will find them effective.
