Microsoft Office to OpenOffice Migration Guide
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Named ranges and “Natural Language” formulas

It is possible, in some versions of Excel, to have the same range name on different sheets. This is not possible in Calc. However, if the duplicated range name in Excel refers to the same cell in each case, then it can be simulated in Calc with a range name without the sheet being specified and thus the range name refers to the specified cell on the current sheet.

Calc does have Natural Language. This is where column or row labels are used (without defining them as range names) in a formula. In Excel, to refer to a cell, a space is used between the label names. In Calc an exclamation mark “!” (sometimes called pling) is used.

In Calc the names are enclosed in single quotes (done automatically by Calc if the label starts with a letter and only has alphanumeric characters). To turn this feature on or off use: Tools > Options > Spreadsheet > Calculate > Automatically find column and row labels.

Microsoft Office to OpenOffice Migration Guide
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