Spreadsheets

Unit 2: Creating More Effective Spreadsheets

Lesson 6: Working With Formulas and Functions


How do you enter functions with absolute references?

First, you should understand:
  1. how relative references are different from absolute references, and
  2. when to use absolute references.
Second, you should understand that the only time you need to used absolute references in a function is when you will be copying the function to another location in the spreadsheet and the function contains references to cells in a fixed location.

To enter an absolute reference precede the column and/or row reference with a $. For example, B3 becomes $B$3.

The following animation shows an example.
 

Entering a function with an absolute reference
 
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