Excel question: explicit cell reference

I’m not very familiar with Excel and am trying to do some simple programming with it.

Suppose I’ve got a formula in a cell: =E7/(E7*(-E8)-((E6E9K12K12/2E10)))

and I want to copy it repeatedly to the cell below;

But I only want to increment the references to cells in column K, like this: =E7/(E7*(-E8)-((E6E9K13*K13/2*E10))). I don’t want E7 to become E8 (ditto for the remaining E’s)

Is there some prefix or indication that indicates to Excel I don’t want the other cell references incremented when I copy this formula to the 99 following cells? (using CTRL-D)

Thanks for any and all help. Hope this makes sense.

Put a $ in front of each reference you want to remain fixed. E7 becomes $E$7:

=$E$7/($E$7*(-$E$8)-(($E$6*$E$9K12K12/2*$E$10)))

Then can I just copy/paste, and expect the non-$ cells to increment?

You should also know that you can lock the column or the row separately:

Thus: $E7 when copied one row down will become $E8.

E$7 when copied one row down will stay E$7, but if copied column over will become F$7.

Oooh! Just tried it and it worked!

Thanks everyone. (Now to correct my formula – numbers went off in the weeds, but that’s an error in my math) :slight_smile:

Tip: use the F4 key to cycle around the possible combinations of relative/absolute… put your cursor on the cell reference in the formula bar, and repeatedly press F4 - you’ll see what I mean.

Neat! That’s really useful.