Jason D. answered • 04/01/19
Business Professional with Academic Training in MS Excel
Say you've got several mathematical formulas that all use one value in it, that value being contained in cell A2, like it is a constant used throughout a table, and you want to copy the formulas you are using throughout the spreadsheet, denoting cell reference to A2, "$A$2," will make it so that you can drag the formula as much as you like, and the reference will remain the same, to cell A2.
For example, if you had a column of values from A3 to A20, and you wanted to make sure which values were greater than and alternately less than the value in Cell A2, if you were to put in cell B3 the following: "=IF(A3>$A$2,"GREATER THAN", "LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO")", and you wanted to drag the formula in B3 down to B20, you would get accurate results, but if you were to leave out the Absolute Reference denotation (the $) in the formula, then you would get an undesired result throughout Column B.
If you follow the above example, you will see that the Relative Reference, "A3" in the formula, as you drag it down through to B20, changes, ultimately to "A20", to suit the appropriate row of information being analyzed.
