I'm working on an excel document where I'm referencing another sheet. The columns in the sheet that I'm working on contains the same formula only the letter changes.

=Sheet7!C$16/Sheet7!C$21 =Sheet7!D$16/Sheet7!D$21 =Sheet7!E$16/Sheet7!E$21

etc. However Excel won't let me drag this down and I don't want to have to do this by hand 100s of times. Any help is appreciated.

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  • Why won't Excel "let" you drag down? – music2myear Jul 15 at 5:19

Remove the $ from the formula for the cell reference you want to automatically fill in.

For example, to have C16 expand to C17, C18, etc. remove the $ from that, but not from C$21 if you want that to stay the same.


$ is an absolute cell reference, which keeps it the same when you drag it down. Without the $ Excel will increment the row number each row as you drag it down.

  • I want the numbers to stay the same but the letters to change. So I want to drag and have it change to F16, G16, H16 etc. and it's not doing that even when I move the $ around or remove it completely. – user1061917 Jul 12 at 16:53
  • @user1061917, what you're asking isn't clear. When you drag down to autofill, typically it is the rows that are desired to increment. When you drag across, typically it is the columns that are desired to increment. There is not an automated way to increment columns by dragging down. It can be done by building logic into the formula, though. To answer your question, we are going to need a more explicit description of the action you're looking for (edited into the question rather than in comments). – fixer1234 Jul 13 at 4:19

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