$ function

[Don]

Can someone tell me the function of the $ when used in
the following context:
$a$4...as opposed to just....a4

I was pulling data from one sheet to another within the
same workbook and Excell put those dollar signs in on one
occurance. The sheet works as I want with or without
them but there must be a purpose for them.

I've tried to find this in Excell help but no luck at all.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Don

 

[Peo Sjoblom]

Type in absolute in help

the dollar signs make the cell reference absoluter, for instance if you type
in
= $A$2
in A1

copy and paste the cell into D1 and it will still refer to $A$2
now repeat and use
=A2

when you paste it into D1 it will change to =D2

same if you copy down/across a cell you will notice
that if the dollar signs are there it will still point
to the same cell while the relative reference will change

 

[Frank Kabel]

Hi
in addition to Peo's answer see:
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/relative.htm

 

[Guest]

Hi Peo and Frank,

Well, I'm still a little confused here. What you say
makes sense and the link that Frank provided says the
same thing. However, I must have done something else
when I generated the original formula as a copy and fill
down the other day gave me a relative change not an
absolute cell reference......today, the same procedure,
is giving me an absolute cell reference.

What I have is a sheet (Data) and a sheet (Sheet1)...in
cell A1 of Sheet1 I clicked the = sign in the formula
bar, then switched to Data sheet and clicked on cell G3,
this gave me the formula =Data!$G$3 in A1 of Sheet1.
(I've done this other times on the same two sheets, as
well as many other sheets in this same workbook, and
Excell did not ever and won't now insert the $ when
generating the same formula) Then on Sheet1 I copied A1,
highlighted A2 Thru A25 and pasted. All the references
were relative, i.e. A25 had the formula =Data!$G$28.
Today I do the same copy and paste and I get the results
as you and Frank have explained, absolute references. I
must have done something, but sure don't know what I
did. Do you have any clues as what happened here?

Thanks to both of you for the quick reply. Hope someone
can tell me what I might have done.

Have a great day,

Don

 

[Guest]

Frank,

I left a lengthy response in reply to Peo's explanation.
Thanks for the link. That all makes sense but as I
explain in the above reponse, that's not what was
happening the other day. And, now I am confused...

Would sure like to know what I did.

Thanks again,

Don