need help understanding this (macro generated) code

Hey all

Im working on automating a few processes. I consider myself pretty proficient with VBA and can write code from scratch buuuut im also very very very lazy. So one trick i like to do is record a macro, then edit the code to clean it up and add more functionality to it.

Recently created a macro that creates a new column, adds a vlookup formula to a certain cell and then drags that cell down the column. That formula is as follows "=VLOOKUP(J2, Key!$B$1:$E$50, 3, FALSE)"

In the VBA that was generated by recording a macro while entering the formula is: ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = "=VLOOKUP(RC[5], Key!R1C2:R50C5, 3, FALSE)"

Just wondering if someone could explain this difference to me? ive never seen this RC[5] or R1C2:R50C5 so im not sure what these mean. Can someone explain how this works? i mean, i understand that RC[5]=J2, but not sure how

https://trumpexcel.com/a1-r1c1-refer...third%20column.

Excel has two addressing formats: A1 and R1C1.

A1 is the default on the worksheets, and gives column letter then row number. All references are relative, unless you use the $ prefix to make it absolute.

R1C1 gives R then row number, then C then column number. All references are absolute unless you enclose the row or column number in [brackets] to make it relative.

The link provided by jolivanes is decent but has a major error:

This is also known as the Relative Notation as the cell reference uses a row number and column number that tells you the relative position of that reference from the active cell.

This is just wrong. The example that is used for this sentence is absolute notation, and the same article goes on to describe both relative and absolute notation correctly later.

There are a ton of tutorials on this subject on the web.

To make it more readable, the code be edited to:

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