Authoritative Excel range syntax reference

Question

Sorry if this has been asked before but I can\'t find it. I am looking for an authoritative description of all valid strings that can be used as a reference, e.g., \"A1:C5\", \"

Answer 1

I don't know if there is a list of formats, because there really are only 2: A1 format and R1C1 format. You're not actually specifying a range format when you use A1:C3 because the : is actually the range operator.

The variants of $A$1, $A1, A$1 are just that - variants, identifying that when copying the reference the coordinate before the $ should not change, but that otherwise the coordinate may change relative to the copy.

R1C1 is more complex, because it allows relativity. R3C2 is an absolute reference to Row 3, Column 2 (B3 in A1 notation), while the use of braces [] in an R1C1 reference indicates that it is relative to the current cell R[-2]C[1] from cell R3C2 would give R1C3 (C1).

Nearly forgot. There can also be a reference to cells in another worksheet. 'Sheet2'!IV256

I use

(((\w*)|(\'[^\']*\')|(\"[^\"]*\"))!)?\$?([a-z]{1,3})\$?(\d+) 

as a regexp for identifying cell references in the A1 format