How to quickly find a column by it's name in a sheet?

Diane Moore

I have a very large sheet with many columns coming in from a form and many additional helper and result columns. I have created documentation of how it is working where I document the column named, its purpose and the formula used. (In addition to adding information to the column description). I am curious if there is a way to quickly refocus the screen on a particular column. For example, if I know a column is called Round_Helper_TCOC$Impact/Dose, is there a way to quickly get to it instead of searching through 50+ columns looking for it?

Paul Newcome

The only quick way would be to insert a helper row that replicates the column names and then use the CTRL+F.

Bassam Khalil

Hi @Diane Moore 

Hope you are fine, it's very important question but Unfortunately, this feature is not currently available. You can submit Smartsheet Product Enhancement Requests using this form.

the only way is to dedicate a row for column names and use the Ctrl + F to use find function to search for the column name.

Alex Fraser

This thread is essentially a year old, but you can search column names by clicking on the URL bar, then pressing ctrl+F. You will still need to horizontal scroll to find the column, but it will be highlighted making it much easier.

Hope this helps a year later!

Paul Newcome

The only quick way would be to insert a helper row that replicates the column names and then use the CTRL+F.

Bassam Khalil

Hi @Diane Moore 

Hope you are fine, it's very important question but Unfortunately, this feature is not currently available. You can submit Smartsheet Product Enhancement Requests using this form.

the only way is to dedicate a row for column names and use the Ctrl + F to use find function to search for the column name.

Diane Moore

Thanks for your quick response @Bassam Khalil and @Paul Newcome .

I hadn't even thought about adding a helper row. That would work until they provide this feature.

Have a great day!

Paul Newcome

Happy to help. 👍️

Bassam Khalil

@Diane Moore

I will be happy to help you any time

Diane Moore

I just realized that I have column formulas set in many of the columns. Since the sheet is being fed by a form, that is necessary. I submitted an enhancement request. In the meantime, any other creative ideas?

Paul Newcome

If you are adding new rows using ONLY forms or if you are using manual entry for new rows, as long as there are two rows above and/or below the new row with the formula in it, auto-fill will grab it even without it being a column formula. Auto-fill has kind of fallen to the wayside since column formulas came out, but it does still work.

Diane Moore

Oh wow... that is interesting. I do only add rows with a from and new rows populate on the top of the sheet. I think I hear you say that I can turn off column formula and use autofill with the formula. Given that new rows are added to the top, should I do the following:

1. add a new row to the bottom of the sheet and add the column name
2. create the formula in the current top row (that contains the last record created by the form)
3. copy the formula down to all rows (except the last row) which would now contain the column description

Did I understand that correctly?

Paul Newcome

All you should have to do is convert your column formulas back to cell formulas. That's it. You shouldn't have to recreate or dragfill anything.

So 1 = Yes.

2 & 3 = No. It is much easier to right click on any cell within that column and select "Convert to cell formula".

You would actually need to do this (convert to cell formulas) before adding the helper row to the bottom of the sheet so that you can overwrite the formulas to enter the column names.

Once you use the CTRL+F to find the appropriate column, you should be able to click on a cell in that column then hold down CTRL and press the up arrow to jump to the top of the sheet within that column.

Alex Fraser

This thread is essentially a year old, but you can search column names by clicking on the URL bar, then pressing ctrl+F. You will still need to horizontal scroll to find the column, but it will be highlighted making it much easier.

Hope this helps a year later!

Diane Moore

@Alex Fraser - This is genius! Thank you. I just tried it and it works! Thank you so much for responding. This will help me (even though it is a year later). 😀

Patrick Pilvines

A work around I found in card view is if you click (at least in chrome) into the URL and press CTRL+F (or go into the menu and select find on page in chrome options) it will search only the text that shows on the card, not the details underneath.

Sort of a work-around, this should work in the system today in card view, the search leaves a lot to be desired for searching on cards....

Jennifer Kaupke

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/335497#Comment_335497

I jumped for joy at this response, thank you for posting! 🤩🤩