Ranges are often expressed in a spreadsheet as two cell addresses separated by a colon. This makes sense, but it's not really easy to use. To make your life easier, Calc allows you to give a selection a meaningful name.

For example, you could select the column in your sheet that represents price and give it a name by choosing the define range... command from the data menu. Enter Price as the range name, notice the address of the range listed near the bottom of the screen. Click enter when you're done.

Next, create another range called cost.

Select the cost column, then choose define range from the data menu, name the range “cost” and click enter.

Now you've created two ranges; Price and Cost. You can use the data > select range command to quickly select any defined range of cells.

Ranges become really useful once you start working with calculations. Let's take a closer look.