Excel Tutorial – COLUMNS

Excel’s COLUMNS function is a simple yet useful function that returns the number of columns in a range of cells. You can use it to quickly count the number of columns in a table, or to check if a range is empty.

Here’s how to use the COLUMNS function:

1. In a cell, type the following formula: =COLUMNS(range)
2. Replace range with the cell range that you want to count the columns of. For example, if you want to count the columns in a table that starts in cell A1 and goes to cell C10, you would type A1:C10.
3. Press Enter to see the result. The cell will display the number of columns in the specified range.

Here’s an example of the complete formula: =COLUMNS(A1:C10)

This formula would return the value 3, because the range A1:C10 has 3 columns.

You can also use the COLUMNS function with an array constant, which is a set of values enclosed in curly braces {}. For example:

=COLUMNS({1,2,3;4,5,6;7,8,9})

This formula would return the value 3, because the array constant has 3 columns.