Sum column by referencing column header

Question

In Google Spreadsheets, I would like to find a column using a variable matching the column header and sum the column if the match is found.

Example:

-------------------
Ref | X  | Y  | z |
-------------------
A   | 3  | 4  | 2 |
-------------------
B   | 2  | 1  | 2 |
-------------------

What I need is to sum all of one column or all of one row (eg. B), not by referring directly to the row reference but by looking up "B" (or filtering "A" out).

How can I do that?

Answer 1

You can use the following formula to accomplish that.

Formula

=SUM(INDIRECT(B1 & ":" & B1))

Explained

This formula can be used for rows and columns a like. It simply combines the input into a text range, that's being converted into a readable range, through the INDIRECT function.

Screenshot

Example

I've prepared an example file for you: sum column by referencing column header