cell reference

cell reference

[′sel ‚ref·rəns] (computer science) The address of a cell that contains a value that is needed to solve a formula in a spreadsheet program.

cell reference

(spreadsheet)A string identifying a particular cell in aspreadsheet, possibly relative to the cell containing thereference. A cell reference may be absolute (denoted by a "$"prefix in Excel) or relative (no prefix) in each dimension,thus, e.g. B$6 refers to the second cell across in the sixthrow. The distinction between absolute and relative is onlysignificant when the referring cell is copied, e.g. if cellA1, which refers to B$6, is copied to cell B1, then B1 willrefer to C6.

If the reference is to a cell in a different sheet then it isprefixed with the target sheet's name and an exclamationmark. E.g. "Sheet 1!B3".