References and names in Excel (Excel for beginners session 3)

excel

beginner

Excel for beginners

Published

September 15, 2025

This session is part of our Excel for beginners course. That’s a series of seven linked sessions, delivered on Teams, that give an introduction to Excel for people working in health and social care. The sessions are:

Excel first steps
Tidy data in Excel
References and names in Excel (this session)
Excel formatting
Excel tables
Excel formulas
and a final practical review session to help you put your new skills to work

Together, they aim to help you develop an appropriate set of Excel skills to help your work. This session covers references and names in Excel:

you might find the list of Excel shortcuts helpful too

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Forthcoming session(s)

Booking link	Date
References and names in Excel (Excel for beginners session 3)	13:00-14:30 Wed 13th May 2026

Video overview

Some sample data

user	pre-training score	post-training score	session
Steve	4	6	Excel 1
Emma	7	6	Excel 2
Bhavin	3	9	Excel 1

References

Excel sheets are made up of cells
cells are arranged in rows and columns
- columns have letters - like C
- rows have numbers - like 3
references are the ‘address’ of a particular cell - like C3
- you can ‘point’ at a cell by using its reference

Finding a reference

from the name box:
or work out from the column and row labels
- always column letter, then row number
- C3, not 3C

Using a reference

we can write a formula that copies the value from C3 into another cell
formulas start with an =
so we’ll use = C3 to get Emma’s visit date (or whatever value you referenced)

References in formulas

we use references to allow us to pass data around our spreadsheet
an example: how much did Emma’s score improve during the session?
calculate this with = C3 - C2

References move

by default, Excel references are relative
when you move a reference, the cell that reference points to also moves
it is possible to ‘fix’ references so that they not move
- we call these absolute references
- the $ fixes a reference, so $C$3 is absolute

You can name things

almost everything in Excel can be named
the easy way to start with that is using the name box
names can replace references in formulas
this is valuable when things get more complicated

You can use and manage names

via the Name manager (Ctrl + F3)
Go to (F5)

Practical

Using a reference

we can write a formula that copies the value from C3 into another cell

Tip

go to an empty cell, type = C3, and press Enter/⏎
that cell should now have Emma’s post-training score (or whatever value you referenced)

References in formulas

how much did people improve during the training session?

Task

add a new column called improvement
in the first row of that column, add the formula: = C2 - B2
- that calculates the post-training score minus the pre-training score
then copy/fill down

References move

Task

try copying your new block of improvement cells around your sheet
their value should change (almost certainly to a #VALUE error)
now try clicking those cells to see where the updated reference points to

Absolute references

Task

delete your copied blocks of cells from the last step
now update your references by adding $ before the letter and number
- so C2 becomes $C$2
- you might prefer to press F4 instead
now copy and paste those blocks of cells again. What’s different this time?
please delete those new blocks of cells when you’re finished

You can name things

Task

let’s average the post-training score column
in a new cell (C5 perhaps?) add this formula:
- =AVERAGE(C2, C3, C4)
now name that new cell av_score and try using it in a formula
- = INT(av_length) would round that to the nearest whole number

You can manage those names

Task

find the Name manager (or press Ctrl + F3)
try renaming your av_score cell
try making a new named range from your three pre-training score cells
try using the F5 Go to interface to navigate between your named cells