In this lesson, I’m going to be showing you how to:
- Understand what is an absolute cell reference in Excel
- Understand why it is important to use absolute cell reference to a formula before replicating in Excel
- Apply an absolute cell reference to a formula before replicating in Excel
Go ahead, open the video below and watch the tutorial at your own pace:
If I have not covered everything in this lesson, please leave a comment or your question below and I will get back to you. (you may have to scroll down past other lovely peoples comments)
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When you’re ready move onto:
Lesson 30: Best method to format numbers to display as PERCENTAGES in Excel
Or go back to:
Lesson 28: A simple DIVISION formula in Excel | How to DIVIDE in Excel
Lesson 27: What is the thousand separator in Excel | How to use the thousand separator in Excel
Lesson 26: Use the AUTOSUM button to quickly ADD up cells in Excel | What is the Autosum Button in Excel?
Lesson 25: Everything you need to know about FREEZING PANES (rows & columns) in Excel | What is Freeze panes?
Lesson 24: How to SORT data in ASCENDING order in Excel
Lesson 23: Best techniques to widen columns & adjust the height of rows in Excel
Lesson 22: How to RENAME a worksheet in Excel
Lesson 21: How to COPY cells from one spreadsheet to another spreadsheet in Excel
Lesson 20: How to select multiple NON-ADJACENT cells in Excel | What are the benefits?
Lesson 19: What is a Workbook and Worksheet in Excel | What is the difference between a workbook and worksheet in Excel?
Lesson 18: What is a Formula and Function in Excel | What is the difference between a formula and function in Excel?
Lesson 17: How to PRINT the spreadsheet SHOWING the formulas and functions in Excel
Lesson 16: What is Page Orientation in Excel | Change Portrait orientation to Landscape in Excel
Lesson 15: Format the Font colour in Excel | Shade a range of cells to any colour in Excel
Lesson 14: How to insert a HEADER in Excel? | How to insert an AUTOMATIC FILENAME in the header?
Lesson 13: How to Format cells as Currency, Date, Percentages and apply Decimal Places to numbers in Excel
Lesson 12: Wrap Text in Excel | Break Text to Multiple Lines | Shrink to Fit
Lesson 11: Merge & Center in Excel | Merge Across | Merge Cells
Lesson 10: How to use the INSERT FUNCTION command in Excel
Lesson 9: Simple Subtraction Formula in Excel
Lesson 8: Using the COUNT and COUNTIF function to count ONLY the cells, which contains TEXTUAL data
Lesson 7: Count & CountA function in Excel | Difference between Count and CountA function in Excel
Lesson 6: MIN & MAX function in Excel | Find the Minimum and Maximum value within a range in Excel
Lesson 5: Average Function in Excel | What does Average mean
Lesson 4: Multiplication Formula in Excel | Replicate or Copy Formulas in Excel
Lesson 3: Formatting Cells in Excel | Make a Spreadsheet look visually attractive
Lesson 2: SUM function in Excel | Entering Text & Numbers | FREE Series of Microsoft Excel Lessons
Lesson 1: Introduction to Microsoft Excel | Excel Interface | FREE Series of Microsoft Excel Lessons (pdf guide included)
Hope you are enjoying your learning 🙂
Habib Ali – ICT Tutor

Nothing worse than creating a formula and when copying it you lose the correct cell references – absolute references are the ticket! Game changer, thanks for this 🙂
You’re welcome Gareth. Yes, absolute cell references does have a very big impact when replicating formulas and functions. You take care 🙂
Habib (ICT tutor)
Hi Habib,
It is another great video about using Excel. It is very important to use absolute cell reference to a formula before replicating. It can facilitate the work for replicating in many cells. I can’t imagine if I don’t know how to use absolute cell reference to a formula, I’ll have to type in the formula in different cells one by one.
Thank you for your tutorial. Please keep it up and I want some advanced technique also.
All the best,
Alex
Yes Alex, the absolute reference is amazing when you are replicating the formula, otherwise like you said, the task for each formula have to been done one formula at a time – not a great idea when you have a lot of formulas to do.
Habib (ICT tutor)
Thank for this tutorial in absolute cell references!
Every time you manage to make something that seems difficult look very easy.
The video is really helpful and lets you run everything step by step in parallel in excel.
Keep up your nice tutoring!
Catherine
Thank you Catherine – it is my job to make the hardest task look easy in ICT 🙂 Happy to hear you found absolute cell references tutorial easy to follow and understand. Take care
Habib (ICT tutor)
This was a great tutorial just like all your other ones. I am learning a lot about excel just from your videos. Thank you for all your efforts! 🙂
By the way, would you be able to do a tutorial on how to create a column or a row where we can add a search option? I hope I haven’t confused you.
Thank you Sasha – I totally got your question. Creating a search feature on excel is actually quite easy and I will be doing a video tutorial on this soon, so watch out for that. Don’t forget to bookmark our site 🙂
Habib (ICT tutor)
Hi Habib,
Another excellent tutorial. The YouTube video really compliments the page, especially as I’m a visual learner. I haven’t used the absolute cell reference before, but I followed it through anyway and managed to get it to work, so kudos to your tips!
Thank you Sharon – yes my YouTube video and YouTube channel works very well with my website, they compliment each other and gives my visitors a choice whether to watch the lessons on my site or over on our YouTube channel. Please don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel – it helps me out 🙂
habib (ICT Tutor)
I wondered why I always get an error when I try to calculate my data on Excel, now I understand. Whole time I was thinking that I didn’t have something enabled in the settings haha. Thank you for this it was easier than I thought!
You’re welcome Joshua – such a small technique can make a big difference to your spreadsheet and your confidence 🙂
Habib (ICT tutor)
Very informative indeed, I have used the absolute value in formulas often however I always typed the $ sign in front of the letter and number which gives me full control because at times I don’t always want the absolute reference for both the column and row.
I didn’t know about the F4 shortcut key for the entire formula. A great quick way for when using absolute for the entire formula, thanks for sharing.
Yes Rick, the function button F4 is a great shortcut if you want to apply full absolute reference to a cell. You can also use the F4 button to apply an absolute reference to a column or row only. Every time you click the F4 button it will alternate the absolute reference by applying firstly to the full cell then to just the row and another click will apply it to the column of the cell reference in question. Hope this helps you out even further 🙂
Habib (ICT tutor)
Great article on Lesson 29 – Everything you need to know about ABSOLUTE cell references before replicating a formula in Excel!!! This is so helpful for everybody! Thanks for sharing such valuable information!
Thank you Alyse – hope you’ve understood everything you need to know about ABSOLUTE cell references before replicating a formula in Excel 🙂
Habib (ICT Tutor)
Excellent advice. Great help. Thanks again.
You’re very welcome Owain – hope you understood everything about absolute cell references 🙂
Habib (ICT tutor)
As always, its an honor being part of this masterclass. I used to think I know Excel until I discovered your lessons. And thank you for using a video to explain, brings everything into perspective. I can’t believe I got a grasp of the absolute cell references in under 15 minutes. I’m staying tuned.
You’re very welcome Zay – my next lesson will be published here on the 6th July 2020 on our website and on our YouTube channel too, so stay tuned 🙂
Habib (ICT tutor)
Hello Habib,
Thank you for putting this tutorial together. I really needed some help in this area.
I need to used absolute cell formulas all the time for work, and this training was a quick and easy fix for me.
Watching this video was the best 10 minutes I have ever spent!
Michael
That’s great to hear Michael. I’m happy my video lesson has helped you to understand about absolute cell references in excel 🙂
Habib (ICT tutor)
Another great tutorial Habib on absolute cell reference before replicating cell formulas in excel, something that I would have continued to struggle with until I saw this!
you break everything down so simply.
Thank you Habib
Thank you Amy – absolute cell references are great. Another lesson I have done on Relative OR Absolute references makes it even more clear by demonstrating 3 more examples. This will be available on 6th July 2020 on my website and YouTube channel 🙂
Habib (ICT tutor)