The end of Excel

Logic Level 2

Microsoft Excel is an application in which a user can input data into a table, whose columns are labelled "A", "B", "C", "D", ... up to "Z", where it continues as "AA", "AB", "AC"... Knowing that the rightmost column of this table is labelled "XFD", how many columns does Microsoft Excel have?

Note : There are 26 letters in the alphabet.


The answer is 16384.

Manuel Kahayon by Manuel Kahayon , 21, Philippines

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2 solutions

Ron Acda
Apr 2, 2016

Notice that the problem is just base 26 to decimal conversion in disguise. Suppose XFD is a number in base 26, with X, F, D representing 24, 6, 4 respectively. We then have [24x(26^2)] + [6x26] + 4 = 16384, as desired.

6 Helpful 1 Interesting 0 Brilliant 0 Confused

THAT was the solution I was waiting for! (for 4 months). Well, the other solution is still nice, but I personally like this one more.

Manuel Kahayon - 5 years, 2 months ago
Cooper Haddrill
Nov 27, 2015

We first have to find out what number associates with each letter in the alphabet. (For example A=1, B=2, C=3.....etc.) So X=24, F=6, D=4. We then can set up and equation [(26 26) 24]+[26*6]+4. 26 represents all the letters in the alphabet. We then can work backwards and say that we add 4 to the equation because D represents the ones place. We then multiply 26 by 6 because it represents the tens place and it needs to go through the alphabet 6 times to get to F. Then we multiply 26 by 26 by 24 because for it to the hundreds place it need to go through the alphabet 26 times but since it is X is needs to multiply another 24 times. We end up getting 16,224 (for the X position) + 156 (for the F position) + 4(for the D position)=16,384 which is how many columns are in Microsoft Excel.

4 Helpful 0 Interesting 0 Brilliant 0 Confused

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