Week 9: Clear: Relative Cell References vs. Absolute Cell References

A Cell Reference is technically the name of a cell. A cell is made up of where a row and a column meet. Rows are defined by numbers and cells are defined by letters. For instance, the first cell in the top left-hand corner is named A1 because it is the intersection between column A and row 1. There are two types of references to these cells, they are absolute and relative.

A relative cell reference is one that changes with movement of the data. For instance, if you type a function in a cell and fill it to another cell then the new cell's function changes. For example, if in cell B1 there was the function =A1+4 and then you filled that function to C1, C1 would have =B1+4. It adjusts to each cell.

An absolute cell reference is one that doesn't change when it is moved. Absolute cell references are labeled with the money ($) symbol. For instance if you have $A1 then the column A will never change in the reference but the 1 will or if you have $A$1 then the cell will stay constant through each formula in the entire page if it is filled.

The Business Environment

This is very useful in the business world because using cell references makes keeping track of records a lot faster and easier. Also the ability to use the functions in excel and use absolute and relative cell references allows for filling functions throughout the spreadsheet so you don't have to type over and over again. Huge corporations are definitely greatly affected and helped with this ability to do this with Excel.

Related Link

This link on Ongrid.com tells about relative and absolute cell references. It also informs about the usefulness of them and how they should be used. This is a good site to look at if this subject is kind of cloudy to you.