it does help to some degree. thanks ron and also bpeltzer, who also replied.
but one thing that still escapes me is the meaning of the dollar signs.
surely $F$1 is different from F1, right?

"Ron Coderre" wrote:

Using =+OFFSET(Detail!$F$1,D22-1,$F$11-1,1,1)
That function initially points to cell F1 on the Detail sheet
Then it moves up or down based on the value in Cell D22 less 1 of the sheet
the formula is on.
Then it moves left or right based on the value in Cell F11 less 1 of the
sheet the formula is on and selects an area 1-cell wide by 1-cell high.

Example:
D22 contains 10
F11 contains 3

The formula initially points to Detail!$F$1
Moves down 9 (10-1) to Detail!$F$10
Then moves right 2 (3-1) to end up at Detail!H10


Does that help?

***********
Regards,
Ron

XL2002, WinXP-Pro


"Amanda Redmond-Neal" wrote:

hi. i just inherited a goliath workbook with four interconnected
spreadsheets that my old boss had used to manage certain aspects of our
company's contract accounting.
one of the functions that he created reads
"=+OFFSET(Detail!$F$1,D22-1,$F$11-1,1,1)". this results in a number that is
important to my task at hand, so i need to know where it came from. knowing
that i am not particularly excel-savvy, can someone tell me what this
expression means? fyi, "detail" is the name of another page of the workbook
from the one where this text is found.
in case it matters, i did look at cell F1 of the "detail" page, but it is
simply a date, and not a related one at that. i wish i knew what the dollar
signs mean.