Changing cell reference in a formula using contents of another cell

[baylism]

Hello All,

I have a spreadsheet with 3 tabs, Sheet1, Sheet2 and Sheet3.  On Sheet3 I have lots of cells with formulas that refer to cells in Sheet1.  Suppose I now want them all to refer to Sheet2 instead.  Better than Find/Replace, or doing it manually, can I set things up so that in Sheet 3 I have a cell where I enter either 'Sheet1' or 'Sheet2' as text, and the formulae construct the cell references from it?

Write 'Sheet2' in cell A1

Have a formula in another cell something like ='A1'!B7 

and now get the value for Sheet2! B7

[#2]

@baylism 

Microsoft invented INDIRECT() for this purpose.

But beware. The function is volatile. If INDIRECT() is used any change in the workbook triggers a recalculation of all the cells in the workbook.

[#3]

@Detlef Lewin   I read about indiect() before, and it seems to be a bit different.  If I have 27 in cell B2, and 'B2' in cell A1, then indirect(A1) looks in A1, finds 'B2' and gives me the value 27.

I want it to look at a cell which contains text, and embed that text into a cell reference.  ie, the text in A1 is a sheet name, and I write  xxxxx - A1 xxxx B10 in a cell, and it returns the value in sheet 'A1' cell B10.

[#4]

I’m sure my friend @Detlef Lewin can provide you an example for that. I suggest that the Sheet Name be selected from drop-down list, then use INDIRECT, which is a volatile function. In layman’s terms, volatile in Excel means very slow because it triggers recalculation almost whenever a slight modification of the data is made.

[#5]

@baylism 

INDIRECT() is designed to convert text into a reference. Pleasesee  the support page for the function.

=INDIRECT("'"&A1&"'!B10")

This concatenates the value in A1 with some additional text to become the following reference.

'Sheet1'!B10