what is relative reference

Relative reference is a term used in Microsoft Excel to describe a cell reference that is relative to the location of the cell. By default, all cell references are relative references, which means that when a formula is copied to another cell, the reference changes based on the relative position of rows and columns. For example, if you copy the formula =A1+B1 from row 1 to row 2, the formula will become =A2+B2. This is useful when you want to perform a similar operation on multiple cells and the formula must change according to the relative address of column and row. To make a cell reference absolute, you can add a dollar sign ($) before the column and/or row. This will keep the reference constant no matter where it is copied.