Cells in Excel are referred to using relative or absolute references. A formula with relative references changes when the cell's position does.

Excel ROW function will return the row number of a reference. ROWS will return the number of rows in a column. Learn how to use the Row and Rows function in Excel.

How to Format Relative References in Excel. Microsoft Excel relies on two fundamental reference types when addressing other cells. Absolute references -- which are denoted with a "$" -- lock a ...

Unlike relative references, absolute references do not change when copied or filled. You can use an absolute reference to keep a row and/or column constant.

Is there a way to hold down shift/ctrl, etc to make a cell reference an absolute reference when entering a formula instead of having to go back and enter $?

A row-by-row formatting rule is as easy to apply as a column-by-column in Microsoft Excel, but you might not get the results you thought you would.