Increment Cell Reference With Indirect

Explanation

Consider a simple dynamic reference to Sheet2 using the INDIRECT in a formula like this:

=INDIRECT($B$5&"!"&"A1")

If we change the sheet name in B5 to another (valid) name, INDIRECT will return a reference to A1 in the new sheet.

However, if we copy this formula down the column, the reference to A1 won’t change, because “A1” is hardcoded as text.

To solve this problem, we use the CELL function to generate a text reference from a regular cell reference:

CELL("address",A1)

With “address” as the first argument, and A1 as the second argument, the CELL function returns a string like “$A$1”. Because A1 is a regular cell reference, it will increment normally as the formula is copied down the column. The result in D5:D9 is a series of formulas like this:

=INDIRECT("Sheet2!$A$1")
=INDIRECT("Sheet2!$A$2")
=INDIRECT("Sheet2!$A$3")
=INDIRECT("Sheet2!$A$4")
=INDIRECT("Sheet2!$A$5")

In each case, INDIRECT resolves each text string to a reference and Excel returns the value at the given cell in Sheet2.

Note: both INDIRECT and CELL are volatile functions and recalculate with every worksheet change. This can cause performance problems in more complex worksheets.

Explanation

The N function takes a value and returns a number. When given a text value, the N function returns zero.

In this case, the primary formula the SUM function, and the N function simply evaluates the comment text and returns zero:

=SUM(F5:F8)+N("Q4 numbers are estimates")
=SUM(F5:F8) + 0
=410,750

The comment is visible in the formula bar when the cell is selected.