Excel formulas?

dulpit

Hey, I'm going through an old excel worksheet at work, need to grab some data from it. Looking at some of the formulas, the guy who put it together uses the $ symbol a lot before cell names. What does this mean?

e.g.

$H$16 = E$34 + E$35

Is this any different to

H16 = E34 + E35

Just wondering, in case it does do something important that i'm not aware of...

py2006

dulpit wrote:

Hey, I'm going through an old excel worksheet at work, need to grab some data from it. Looking at some of the formulas, the guy who put it together uses the $ symbol a lot before cell names. What does this mean?

e.g.

$H$16 = E$34 + E$35

Is this any different to

H16 = E34 + E35

Just wondering, in case it does do something important that i'm not aware of...

I can't be entirely sure from that formula but normally the dollar sign is used for absolute cell referencing.

EL_Loco

yes they're very important.

basically the $ stop the cell reference changing when you cut and paste the equations.

try this for a good working example.

(working out a VAT rate of 21%)
put .21 in cell A1
in the B column put in random numbers
in C1 put
=b1*$A$1

copy and paste C1 down to say, C20. look at the equations all the way along. Notice the "B1" part changes to reflect the cell it's been pasted into, but the $ references don't change.
then change the value in A1. Good for setting a cell to be your constant rate or something like that.

dulpit

Cheers for quick replies, nice one...