In Excel, it’s easy to collect the value of another cell to reuse it. Let’s see different situations in the same worksheet or in another worksheet.
What is the cell reference?
In Excel, a cell is often called by its reference. In other words, it is the intersection of a row and a column, like A1, B5, D8,… For instance, here, the active cell is the cell B3
If you are unfamiliar with the Excel keywords, you can do this test
Reusing the value of a cell in the same worksheet
In Excel, it’s easy to reuse the content of another cell.
- Select any empty cell in your worksheet
- Press the =sign
- Select the cell to link (here A1)
- The complete formula is displayed below (easy to understand 😉)
=A1
Remarks. When you refer to another cell
- The content is duplicated, whatever the type of data, Text or Number
- The format of the cell selected is not repro
Why it’s important?
Creating such a reference is not complicated, and it’s the best way to work with Excel. Because now, each time you update the value in the source cell, the linked cell is automatically updated
Reusing the value of a cell in another worksheet
If you want to link a cell from another worksheet, the steps are the same
- Select any cell in another sheet
- Press the =sign (this activates the edit mode)
- Return to the worksheet with the cell that you want to link
- Select the cell with the content to link
The formula is now: =SheetName!Cell Reference
The delimiter between the Sheet name and the cell reference is ALWAYS an exclamation mark (!)
What happens if you change the Sheet’s name?
If you change the Sheet’s name, Excel will automatically change the reference in the destination cell.
