If you want to understand the term Column Heading/Column Label and Column Name/Field/Field Label in Google Sheets, you should first understand where you can use these.
If you use Database Functions or Pivot Table in Google Sheets, you may happen to see the term Field or Field Label. The same is also sometimes referred to as the Column Name.
Then what is Column Heading or Column Label in Google Sheets? I have the answer to all these Spreadsheet terms below.
Column Heading/Column Label in Google Sheets
The Column Headings aka Column Labels are the ones that you can see at the top of your worksheet columns as A, B, and C.
You can use this to address a Cell or Cells in combination with the Row Headings aka Row Labels (1, 2, 3…).
See the image to understand what is Column Heading or Column Label.
On this screenshot, the Column Headings/Labels are marked. A, B, C, D… are the so-called Column Labels or Column Headings.
Field/Field Label/Column Name in Google Sheets
In the above screenshot, there are 8 columns visible. What are the names of those columns? Is that Column A, Colum B, Colum C likewise? Nope! It’s not like that.
Again take a look at the above screenshot and pay your attention to the row # 1. Each column in that row has a label identical to the data in that column. It’s called Column Names in some of the functions in Google Sheets.
For example, in the GETPIVOTDATA function, you may be required to use a Column Name. In that case, you can’t use “C” or “Column C” instead of “Item No.” (please refer the above screenshot).
In functions that start with the letter “D”, which are Database Functions, you can see the argument “Field” used in the syntax.
It’s also referred to the top row in your dataset. In the above example, it’s the titles in row # 1.
Conclusion:
Generally speaking, the term Column Heading/Column Label is different from Field/Field Label/Column Name or even Field Title.
Leave the functions aside. Normally you should read the term Column Heading as the above Field/Field Label/Column Name unless the label associated with the column heading is specified. For example, “enter the below values in Column A, highlight Colum D” etc.
