Copying and pasting a formula containing relative references B2 is actually 1 cell right, 1 cell down, and so on. So B1 is actually 1 cell to the right and 0 cells down. G10 can be described as the cell that is 3 cells across and 4 cells up from the location of G10.įor example, suppose you put a formula in cell A1 that looks like this:Įxcel actually thinks of these cells, B1, B2 and B3, in terms of where they are relative to A1. If you have D14 selected, then D15 can be described as the cell one row down. Relative referencesĪ relative reference allows you to describe a cell in terms of where it is relative to the current cell. Relative references and their counterpart, absolute references, are one of the things that make spreadsheets such a powerful tool.
When you create a formula in Excel that refers to other cells in the worksheet, Excel will store the information about those cells as relative references.
