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Excel Tutorial

Excel HOME Excel Introduction Excel Get Started Excel Overview Excel Syntax Excel Ranges Excel Fill Excel Move Cells Excel Add Cells Excel Delete Cells Excel Undo Redo Excel Formulas Excel Relative Reference Excel Absolute Reference Excel Arithmetic Operators Excel Parentheses Excel Functions

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Table Pivot

Table Pivot Intro

Excel Case

Case: Poke Mart Case: Poke Mart, Styling

Excel Functions

AND AVERAGE AVERAGEIF AVERAGEIFS CONCAT COUNT COUNTA COUNTBLANK COUNTIF COUNTIFS IF IFS LEFT LOWER MAX MEDIAN MIN MODE NPV OR RAND RIGHT STDEV.P STDEV.S SUM SUMIF SUMIFS TRIM VLOOKUP XOR

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Convert Time to Seconds Difference Between Times NPV (Net Present Value) Remove Duplicates

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Excel Relative References


Relative and Absolute References

Cells in Excel have unique references, which is its location.

References are used in formulas to do calculations, and the fill function can be used to continue formulas sidewards, downwards and upwards.

Excel has two types of references:

  1. Relative references
  2. Absolute references

Absolute reference is a choice we make. It is a command which tells Excel to lock a reference.

The dollar sign ($) is used to make references absolute.

Example of relative reference: A1

Example of absolute reference: $A$1


Relative reference

References are relative by default, and are without dollar sign ($).

The relative reference makes the cells reference free. It gives the fill function freedom to continue the order without restrictions.

Let's have a look at a relative reference example, helping the Pokemon trainers to count their Pokeballs (B2:B7) and Great balls (C2:C7).

Copy Values

The result is: D2(5):

Next, fill the range D2:D7:



The references being relative allows the fill function to continue the formula for rows downwards.

Have a look at the formulas in D2:D7. Notice that it calculates the next row as you fill.



A Non-Working Example

Let's try an example that will not work.

Fill D2:G2, filling to the right instead of downwards. Resulting in strange numbers:

Have a look at the formulas.

It assumes that we are calculating sidewards and not downwards.

The numbers that we want to calculate need to be in the same direction as we fill.


Test Yourself With Exercises

Excel Exercise:

Type reference B2 as relative:



Start the Exercise