Reference a cell by its column name - excel

Question

I want to update the contents of a cell in a workbook. My code looks a little like this:
ProductionWorkBook.Sheets("Production Schedule").Cells(StartRow, 1).Value = EstJobName(i)
The cells are referenced using Cells(StartRow, 1) Where StartRow was a pre-declared and pre-defined integer variable that specifies the row and "1" denotes the column.
EDIT:
Now, I want to change this code to reference the columns by the column HEADERS instead.
For example, the header of a column is: "Fab Hours Date", how do I reference that?

Answer 1

Yes, you can simply use the letter name for the column in quotes:
Cells(StartRow, "A")
Edited to answer your further question:
to look for a specific column name, try this:
columnNamesRow = 1 ' or whichever row your names are in
nameToSearch = "Fab Hours" ' or whatever name you want to search for
columnToUse = 0
lastUsedColumn = Worksheets("Foo").Cells(1, Worksheets("Foo").Columns.Count).End(xlToLeft).Column
For col = 1 To lastUsedColumn
If Worksheets("Foo").Cells(columnNamesRow, col).Value = nameToSearch Then
columnToUse = col
End If
Next col
If columnToUse > 0 Then
' found the column you wanted, do your thing here using "columnToUse" as the column index
End If

Answer 2

Here are two different functions to get what you want. To use them, you'd have to put them in your code.
Function ColumnNumberByHeader(text As String, Optional headerRange As Range) As Long
Dim foundRange As Range
If (headerRange Is Nothing) Then
Set headerRange = Range("1:1")
End If
Set foundRange = headerRange.Find(text)
If (foundRange Is Nothing) Then
MsgBox "Could not find column that matches header: " & text, vbCritical, "Header Not Found"
ColumnNumberByHeader = 0
Else
ColumnNumberByHeader = foundRange.Column
End If
End Function
Function ColumnNumberByHeader2(text As String, Optional headerRange As Range) As Long
If (headerRange Is Nothing) Then
Set headerRange = Range("1:1")
End If
On Error Resume Next
ColumnNumberByHeader2 = WorksheetFunction.Match(text, headerRange, False)
If Err.Number <> 0 Then
MsgBox "Could not find column that matches header: " & text, vbCritical, "Header Not Found"
ColumnNumberByHeader2 = 0
End If
On Error GoTo 0
End Function
Example Calls:
ColumnNumberByHeader ("Extn")
ColumnNumberByHeader("1718", Range("2:2"))
Or in your case:
ProductionWorkBook.Sheets("Production Schedule"). _
Cells(StartRow, ColumnNumberByHeader("Fab Hours Date")).Value = EstJobName(i)

Answer 3

ProductionWorkBook.Sheets("Production Schedule").Range("A" & StartRow).Value = EstJobName(i)
Unless you mean the column is a named range you defined?

Answer 4

ProductionWorkBook.Sheets("Production Schedule").Range("E"& StartRow).Value = ...
will do the job.
Though keep in mind that using hard coded references like the column letter will risk that the macro breaks when the sheet is edited (e.g. a column is inserted). It's therefore better to use a named range and Offset to access:
ProductionWorkBook.Sheets("Production Schedule").Range("StartCell").Offset(StartRow-1).Value
Now you only need to provide the name StartCellto your fist cell (make sure that it's a local name in the Name Manager)