Change Cell Reference to Absolute in Excel

When we use any formulas in Excel, we generally use the relative formulas, but this can lead to the problem of changing the values very frequently. This problem can be solved by making the formulas constant and unrelative; this can only be done by changing the cell references to absolute. This article will help you understand how we can change the cell reference to absolute in a simple way in Excel.

If the formulas in the cells are represented without any $ symbols, then they are not in absolute form. The formulas are known to be in absolute only if the $ symbol is used before every cell address, so, for example, A2 will be represented as $A$2 in the formulas in Excel. So, let's take a look at a simple procedure for anchoring formula cells to change cell references to absolute in Excel.

Anchoring Formula Cells in Excel

Here, we will first select the formula, then use the F4 key to complete our task. Let's go over a simple procedure for anchoring formula cells (changing the cell reference to absolute) in Excel.

Step 1

Assume we have an Excel sheet containing a list of items similar to the image below.

We can see in the above image that the formula used is not the absolute type.

Step 2

Now to change the formula to the absolute value, double click on the cell to get into edit mode, select the formula, and press F4 till our required result is created in the formula box. Then repeat the same process for all the formulas used in the sheet, and our final result will look like the below image.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we used a simple example to demonstrate how you can anchor formula cells (change cell reference to absolute) in Excel to highlight a particular set of data.