I hate excel xp. Need help

[Vryce]

Okay.. I'm using excel to setup a budget and am having an extremely frustrating time.

I have a worksheet that I set up to hold all my values.
On another worksheet, that is the actual budget, I have each month as its own column.

I use a formula to copy the value from one worksheet to another.
When I use copy and paste across the months, it increments the cell it grabs the value from.

I just want to copy and paste the exact same cell reference as its the same for every month.
I want to do it that way so that if any numbers change, I just have to change it in one spot instead of in every month column.

Thanks for any help.

[cseyer]

This can easily be fixed by using a $ sign in front of the column/row reference you want to remain fixed. For example =Sheet2!A2 would copy Cell A2 from Sheet 2. Now if you copy and paste that formula to the next cell to the right it will make it =Sheet2!B2. Now if you start with =Sheet2!$A2 and paste to the right you will get =Sheet2!$A2 in each cell. If you paste down one cell you will get =Sheet2!$A3. To fix both the column and the row simply put a $ in front of the reference ie =Sheet2!$A$2 and it will not increment/decrement (is that a word) at all.


And if that confuses you try searching help for absolute vs. relative cell references. The built in help is good.

[Vryce]

Thank you.. That certainly should help. I'll give it a try.
I looked up in the help, but wasn't sure what terms to use. I got some information about copying cells, but not the answer I needed.

Thanks again!

[OldDude]

When you are entering formula, the F4 function key will toggle through the 4 possibilities of $ or not on row and column. I don't know if that is easier or harder than typing the $ where required, but it is another way. If you are editting a formula, you can put cursor on a variable (between row and column ref.) and press F4 to toggle.

Relative vs absolute addressing is a PITA and easy to make a mistake. Good news is that its pretty easy to edit.