more help required

[wb]

ok mark (or anyone who can help)

im back to bug you again. :yikes:

have included an example this time

For this part, each horse has a numerical value i.e. horse 1 is worth 450pts, horse 2 is 250pts and horse 3 is 500pts.

therefore the total number of points involved is 1200 (all the points added)

i want to express each horse as a % of 1200

so 100% = 1200 points


what i want to do (in the final result column) is to express 450 points (horse 1) as a fraction of 100% (100% being 1200 in this case)

also horse 2 & 3.

hope this makes sense.

[mathare]

Add this into cells D2 to D4

=Bx/B$6 where x = 2 to 4 ie the row number

What this does is divide the contents of the cell by B6, your total (1200). The $ sign gives an absolute row number for the cell containing the total. This means you can copy this formula into any cell and it will always try and divide it by the equivalent cell in row 6.

Let me explain...

If you enter

= B2/B6

in cell D2 and copy this to cell D3 then D3 will read

= B3/B7

because you are using relative cell references here. Cell D3, when you paste your formula in thinks "Aha. The top line of the division calculation was 2 cells to the left so that is B3, ok. The bottom line (denominator?) was two cells left and 4 rows down so that's B7. There we go"

But that's not what you want.

To fix a row or column in a formula prefix it with a $. So entering

= $B3/$B$6

into D3, then copying and pasting it into say F10 will result in F10 displaying

= $B10/$B$6

ie only the 3 changes even though we have moved the formula to a new row and column because the other bits were prefixed with a $ which makes them absolute references.

Oh yeah, you will also need to change the cell formats, nearly forgot that bit. Highlight the cells you want displayed as percentages (D2:D4) and right click. Select Format Cells then pick Percentage from the list on the Number tab. Set your number of decimal places and press OK.

There you go

[wb]

brialliant, that worked. thanks a million