# Excel experts, I need your help.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-experts-i-need-your-help/340671>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 19, 2006, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-experts-i-need-your-help/340671 "2006-01-19T16:22:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![UrbanChic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9dc877/32.png) [@UrbanChic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UrbanChic)\
**Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-experts-i-need-your-help/340671/1 "2006-01-19T16:22:15Z")

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Sorry for the vague thread title, but I’m really not sure how to distill the essence of what I need into a convenient, bite-sized, title-length phrase.

Anyway, on to what I need. Cell A1 is text. The text is the name of a worksheet. I need a formula that will tell cell B1 that A1 is a sheet (in the same workbook) and return a value from that sheet.

Yes, I know I can do this manually, but there are dozens of sheet names in column A. Is there a way I can tell Excel that the data in the cells in column A are the names of sheets without having to click in B1, key in =, click the sheet and then click the cell that contains the value I want to return?

Thanks much and I hope that wasn’t too confusing. I am more than willing to clarify the above.

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**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\
**Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-experts-i-need-your-help/340671/2 "2006-01-19T16:50:16Z")

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Use the “**indirect()**” function coupled with the “ **&** ” operator (for concatenating text).

For example:

```auto

=INDIRECT(A1&"!A1")

```

will take the worksheet name from the current sheet’s cell A1 and look up the value in the other worksheet’s cell A1. (The first A1 is the worksheet’s name; the second A1 is the cell you want to look up in that worksheet.)

You can download a sample workbook [here](http://vd9.net/sd/sheetnames.xls) if you need one.

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**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\
**Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-experts-i-need-your-help/340671/3 "2006-01-19T17:49:52Z")

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Nice! I consider myself to be pretty proficient in Excel and that function is a new one for me.

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**Author:** ![UrbanChic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9dc877/32.png) [@UrbanChic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UrbanChic)\
**Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-experts-i-need-your-help/340671/4 "2006-01-19T19:45:19Z")

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Thanks a bunch. I haven’t had a chance to evaluate the function to see if it fits my needs, but I wanted to reply to let you know I’ve read your answer.