How to Create Range Names from Selection in Excel

This tutorial will demonstrate how to use Excel’s Create from Selection feature to create multiple named ranges at once.

If our data is arranged in such a fashion that either a row or a column, or both the row and column, have a heading, then we can use this heading to create a range name from a selected range.

Create Range Names From a Selection

1. Highlight the data that contains the headings and the values that we wish to create range names for.

2. In the Ribbon, select Formulas >Defined Names > Create from Selection.

3. Excel will recognize the row and column headers and automatically select Top row and Left Column as the Range Names.

4. Click OK to create the range names.

Note that the spaces in the row headers have been replaced with an underscore (_); spaces are not allowed in range names. Should you header contain any other invalid characters – like # or % – these too would be replaced with an underscore character.