Excel Magic Trick 1276: Impossible: Excel Online Absolute Cell References?

Start and Finish:

Home page:

[jerrydellasala]

In case someone else watches this, the F4 problem has been solved in MS 365 and now works in the online (cloud) version of Excel.

[clintgubich]

I had a conversation a few years ago with one of the developers of Excel online. I told him they needed to decide if they wanted it to be a useful tool, or just an Excel viewer. He assured me they were going to constantly add features and make it more robust.

My complaint then was about the lack of FlashFill ... which is still not available years later. That said, I would not anticipate it ever being very good.

[ChristianLeidersdorff]

It's a feature request that has been put to MS but it apparently does not have as many votes as some other features. Have a look at their feature request logs and you can vote for it, but it will probably be a while before that gets implemented.

[patblackman]

The Online version of Office 365 is primarily to view your documents in the cloud, while on the Go,   with limited functionality to create or edit, and you don't have access to Microsoft Office on the device you are working on.  I always advise my students to use their desktop version to create files. I think trainers should really explain the reasoning behind Office 365. Cost saving on licenses,   accessing your files through the cloud, while on the Go, & the ability to share folders on a team site.  This is my personal observation as a trainer.

[stauber]

I established Office 365 in my company. The good thing is that we can use the sharing function for excel workbooks. When you are using the full version of Excel it is by far better as Google Sheets which was the reason why we switched from Google to Office 365. Only drawback is that we are not able to use online spreadsheets anymore. The functionality is extremely bad, it is not even possible to duplicate a worksheet. My colleagues is driving this crazy. It is very sad that Microsoft has even published this version. When you ask me, they still need a couple of years to reach the same functionality as Google Sheets. Quite disappointing how Microsoft fucked it up!

[rossdbennett]

I had the same problem with my mac with Excel 2011 and my aftermarket bluetooth keyboard. The trick to get abs reference to cycle through the row, column, and both was [Command]+T. Give that a try...?

[trebenenslin]

I am using a laptop and the FN+F4 keys will make a Cell Reference Absolute

[JoeG]

wow, how could microsoft miss this? What do they expect you do type it in manually.

[chukaz]

I doubt there's another way. Remember, MS let's you use office online for free, so they don't wanna give you the good stuff. They're probably hoping these little inconveniences add up so that ultimately you'll just pay the $8 a month or whatever for the subscription.

[kelsozz]

Does F4 lock cells as expected with familiar functions in the online version? If yes, you have to think this particular problem is a MS oversight, and look for a correction.

[ExcelStrategy]

We have no way to solve the confusion that microsoft is creating with this online gimmick...

[michikarpfen]

any chance to create a named range in this excel version to work aroubd?

[AutsajderRR]

I jut play with excel online and formula =$B$1+5 is not working, just show it as a text. Anyone knows why?

[markpodesta]

I've tried it myself and it doesn't work.

[MTGrad]

Probably not...I've tried using Online with my students, and it just doesn't have the functionality of the full version. :(

[krn]

Mike, I can't see anyway of locking cell references. Frustrating.