There are two common ways to reference text in another cell in Excel:
Method 1: Reference Text in Another Cell in Same Sheet
=A7
This particular formula will return whatever text is located in cell A7 of the current sheet.
Method 2: Reference Text in Another Cell in Different Sheet
=Sheet2!B7
This particular formula will return whatever text is located in cell B7 in the sheet named Sheet2.
The following examples show how to use each method in practice.
Example 1: Reference Text in Another Cell in Same Sheet
Suppose we have the following dataset in Excel that contains information about various basketball players:
Suppose we would like to return the text located in cell A7 in a different cell.
To do so, we could type the following formula into cell E1:
=A7
The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:
Notice that cell E1 now contains Nets, which is the text located in cell A7.
Example 2: Reference Text in Another Cell in Different Sheet
Suppose we have another sheet in our Excel workbook called Sheet2 that contains the following data:
Suppose we would like to type a formula into cell E1 of Sheet1 to return the value in cell B7 of Sheet2.
We can use the following formula to do so:
=Sheet2!B7
The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:
Notice that cell E1 now contains Eastern, which is the text located in cell B7 of Sheet2.
Note: In order to reference a cell in another sheet, you must use an exclamation point ( ! ) after the sheet name in the formula.
Additional Resources
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in Excel:
Excel: Find Text in Range and Return Cell Reference
Excel: How to Use an IF Function with Range of Values
Excel: A Simple Formula for “If Not Empty”
