Keeping same table range in auto-populating VLOOKUPs

[FranklinBluth]

I'm trying to populate an entire column of a large spreadsheet with a VLOOKUP function that looks similar to this:

=IF(C5="", "", VLOOKUP(C5,A1:B225,2,FALSE))

However, when I try to auto-populate the entire column it adds 1 to each value of the table range. So instead of the next row reading as:

=IF(C6="", "", VLOOKUP(C6,A1:B225,2,FALSE))

it instead populates as:

=IF(C6="", "", VLOOKUP(C6,A2:B226,2,FALSE))

How can I make it retain the same table range and add only 1 to the first row value in the function (C6, C7, C8, etc.)?

Thanks!

[NBVC]

Try

=IF(C5="", "", VLOOKUP(C5,A$1:B$225,2,FALSE))

The $ makes the reference absolute (i.e. it "freezes" the row numbers)

[FranklinBluth]

That did it! I haven't used absolutes in excel in so long that I forgot about the $ symbol.
Thanks!