Cell references in Excel are like addresses that point to specific cells. Three types of Excel cell references are relative, absolute, and mixed, each with unique functions.

Now that your data is in a formatted Excel table, you're ready to use structured references. In my example, I will select cell C2 (the first cell where I want to create a calculation), and type ...

Press Ctrl+C. Press Esc. Select the destination cell, F3, and press Ctrl+V. As you can see in the data set to the right in Figure A, both expressions reference the same cells, B3 and C3.

Step 1: First, you'll use the formula =LEFT (A2,SEARCH (” “,A2)-1) in cell B2 in this example to pull out the first name. Replace the cell reference as required in your spreadsheet.