relative cell references in a formula

Question

I have a worksheet that performs a lookup to another sheet to count how many items of the type are there.

Anyone familiar with disc golf will recognise what I have in the image below. The only formula is for stock, everything else is static data. For instance cell G2 contains: =COUNTIF(Master!B:B,'Flight Numbers'!B2) The sheet we're looking at is 'Flight Numbers' and 'Master' contains one line for each item currently in stock.

I regularly want to re-order the page using the filter buttons, but when I do, the stock values get mucked up as they stick with the row number they had prior to any re-order.

What I'm seeking is a way to structure the formula so that it has some kind of reference to "current column minus 5" - is that possible?

Thanks...

peterbartholomew1 · Answer

Do you have the data in an Excel Table? That only allows entire records to be sorted and a unit and tends to be more meaningful.

davidheath · Answer

I'll take a look. I've heard of tables, but never used them.Thanks.

peterbartholomew1 · Answer

Ctrl/L or Ctrl/T are shortcuts to creating a table when a cell within the would be Table is selected. Make sure there is blank space around the table.

davidheath · Answer

PeterBartholomew1&nbsp;sorry, that didn't work.&nbsp; I created the table (those alternating stripes are annoying... but, no matter), but when I sorted on a column with the automatically applied filter tool, the cell retained the formula reference for the location it had before the sort, rather than the cell five to the right of its current position.

nowshadahmed · Answer

You can go to the Table Tools tab and deactivate the coloured bands/stripes (yes, it is annoying at times).After applying the formatted table, re-enter the formula in the first cell of the stock column (you might want to clear the old formula from the enyire column first). Excell will update all the rows with the new formula. Now sorting won't be the problem because you are referring to a data in the same row.Another note: while creating the formatted table, select the entire data manually including the headers. When given an option, select 'my table has headers' option and continue.Alternately: To solve the reference, you can make use of INDIRECT function. From what I understand, you don't need it but if nothing works, this might help.

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relative cell references in a formula

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