Excel column letters to numbers and back (A=1, AA=27, XFD=16384), one or a whole list
Runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere. Updated on 25 Oct 2026.Excel numbers its columns A=1 to Z=26, then AA=27, AZ=52 and ZZ=702, up to XFD, which is column 16,384 and the last one a worksheet has. Type letters to get the number, a number to get the letters, or paste a list to convert every line at once.
On the Convert tab, type column letters, a number or a cell reference such as $AB$12.
Read the Letters and the Number, and the Row when you typed a cell.
Press Copy, or Ctrl+Enter, to take the answer.
For many at once, open the List tab, paste one per line and download the table as TSV.
This converter turns Excel column letters into column numbers and numbers back into letters. Type AB and it shows 28; type 28 and it shows AB. It works out which direction you mean from what you type, so there is no mode to switch. Cell references are understood as well: $AB$12, ab12 and Sheet1!C3 all give the column, with the row shown on its own.
The batch box takes a pasted list, one entry per line, or separated by commas or tabs, and converts every entry. Copy the result as a tab-separated table and it pastes straight into two spreadsheet columns. Lines that cannot be read are marked with the reason instead of being dropped.
The arithmetic is not ordinary base 26. Column letters have no zero digit: after Z comes AA, not A0. A plain base conversion therefore goes wrong at every Z, which is the usual bug in hand-written helper functions. Here A is 1, Z is 26, AA is 27, AZ is 52, BA is 53, ZZ is 702 and AAA is 703.
Excel has 16,384 columns and 1,048,576 rows per worksheet, according to Microsoft's published specifications, so the last column is XFD. Larger numbers still convert, with a warning, because other spreadsheet programs and libraries have their own limits.
What it does not do: convert R1C1 references, rename columns in a file, or read a workbook. For Excel date serial numbers such as 45292, use the Excel Date Serial Converter. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is sent anywhere.
XFD is column 16,384, the last column in an Excel worksheet since Excel 2007. The sum is X (24) times 676, plus F (6) times 26, plus D (4), which gives 16,224 + 156 + 4. Earlier versions of Excel stopped at column IV, number 256.
Column letters have no zero digit. In ordinary base 26, the number after Z would be written A0; in a spreadsheet it is AA. So each step subtracts one before dividing by 26. Code that skips that step fails on Z, AZ, ZZ and every other column ending in Z.
Microsoft's published specifications give 16,384 columns (A to XFD) and 1,048,576 rows per worksheet. The converter still converts larger numbers, with a warning, because Google Sheets, LibreOffice and code libraries each have their own limits and some are higher.
Yes. Paste the list into the batch box, one per line or separated by commas or tabs, and each entry is converted in whichever direction it needs. Copy the table and paste it into a spreadsheet; lines that cannot be read show the reason.
Yes. Dollar signs, lower case and a sheet name before an exclamation mark are all accepted, so $B$7, b7 and 'My Sheet'!B7 all give column B, number 2, with row 7 shown separately. R1C1 references are not supported.
Yes. Google Sheets, LibreOffice Calc and Numbers use the same lettering, so A is 1, Z is 26 and AA is 27 everywhere. Only the maximum number of columns differs between programs, which is why the Excel limit is shown as a warning, not an error.
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