In this article we will show you how to lock cells in Google Sheets formulas. This is important to keep your formula working once you copy the cell containing it down a column or along a row. Just follow the simple steps below:
For our example, we want to calculate the weighted score given the following data:
The formula is
Weighted score = ( 0.40 * Column A ) + ( 0.25 * Column B ) + ( 0.35 * Column C )
We can “hard-code” the weights of each column but we want to have flexibility of being able to change their weights when needed, thus storing the weights at different cells. We store 0.40 at B2, 0.25 at C2, and 0.35 at D2.
We will start with the first entry which is in Row 3. The specific formula is
=B2*B3+C2*C3+D2*D3
We place this formula in E3, along the column labeled Weighted Score.
Start clicking at the formula to add dollar signs on the cells that should be locked. For our example it should look like as follows:
=$B$2*B3+$C$2*C3+$D$2*D3
One way to add dollar signs ($) is to click at the equation bar and then insert the dollar signs at the right cells:
The result is:
When you copy the formula by dragging down cell, you will get the formulas correctly copied:
