excel+course - Absolute Referencing

Dear Ria

Thank you for attending Excel Introduction course.

It is very important to understand the main two types of Referencing i.e. Relative (Changing or Variable) and Absolute (Fixed or Constant).

Relative and Absolute referencing are crucial when you copy and paste (known as replicating) formulae and functions.

Lets start off with the more straight forward one i.e. Relative.

Please refer to the Excel file that I have uploaded for the following explanation:

You will notice that cell B5 which is the total for the Jan contains a SUM function: =SUM(B2:B4)

Tip: Shortcut key for Autosum is Alt + =

If you want to repeat this function for Totals of Feb and Mar you would normally take your mouse to the bottom right corner of the cell until the mouse pointer changes to a black cross and then drag it to the other cells (C5 and D5).

Tip: CTRL + ` (known as the back aportstophe key situated below the Escape key) shows all the formulae on the cells rather than the formula bar. Pressing the same key combination brings you back to numeric view.

The reason why the correct results appear on the resulting cells is because of relative referencing which means the cells automatically change in the formula to reflect the