Well, lets see. The rows 5 - 269 are for the bill of materials with a toiatal
in column X. Rows 274 through 426 have another bill of materials that affect
the totals in the first 265 rows. When I sort the second set, the totals in
the first set are affected. I can't live with this, checking each total
everytime I do any manipulations. I do have a common column, so whenI need to
find data I can do a cntl-F and get to my data quickly. Thanks for your help!
John

"bj" wrote:

I do not understand what you need, but check out the indirect() function in
Help.

=indirect("AA31") will always refer to AA31, no matter what you do to the
spreadsheet.

"MarcoPolo" wrote:

I have a rather large worksheet, columns to AN, rows to 369, and currently
transfers data across about 6 worksheets with more to come. I'm building a
price list with a long list a variables and then setting the prices into a
special format, so I cannot afford the data loss. When I sort my list for a
variety of reasons, the formula references do not maintain the original cell
references I need. I tried the absolute reference, bad idea. totally lost the
information. Had to rebuild. Tried partial absolute refernces, some success,
but a big loss on some.

Is there a good way to build a formula that will allow for cell references
to remain intact under various data sorts?
Thanks in advance!
John