The Excel COLUMNS function returns the count of columns in a given reference. For example, COLUMNS(A1:C3) returns 3, since the range A1:C3 contains 3 columns.
Syntax
The syntax for the COLUMNS function in Microsoft Excel is:
=COLUMNS( reference )
reference
A reference to a range of cells or an array.
Columns Function Examples
The following spreadsheet shows three simple examples of the Excel Columns function.
Formulas:
Results:
Note that the above functions were calculated in Excel 2010. Therefore, the formula in cell A3 (which returns the number of columns in the whole of row 1 of the spreadsheet) returns the value 16,384, as this is the number of columns in Excel 2010. If this example were run in Excel 2003, it would return the number 256.