Lesson 01 · 6 min

Meet Maya's stall

Cells, rows, columns and addresses

Maya bakes on Friday nights and sells at the Riverside Farmers' Market every weekend. She writes everything in a spreadsheet, and she's asked you to help her make sense of it. First, let's learn to find our way around.

Video coming soon

Read the short explanation and practise below: it takes about 6 minutes.

A spreadsheet is a grid. Columns have letters (A, B, C…) and rows have numbers (1, 2, 3…).

Every box is a cell, and every cell has an address: its column letter plus its row number. The cell in column C, row 4 is C4. Think of it like a seat in a cinema.

Formulas never say “the lemonade number”. They say “F4”. That's why addresses are the first thing to learn.

Illustration: Meet Maya's stall — Cells, rows, columns and addresses

Row 1 usually holds the headers (Date, Product, Sold…). The real data starts in row 2.

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Your first formula

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