In other words, I'd expect that you can type the formulas in the first row of your OpenOffice Calc sheet and copy them down to the rest of the row, and things will just work. However, you can still see the formula in the formula bar field. Unselect the checkbox beside it, and the result will display.

this probably isn't important to you yet). If you see the formula in the cell instead of the result, then Formulas are selected for display in Tools > Options > Calc > View > Display. ($C1 and C$1 are alternates that allow one parameter of the address to change in the usual relative sense while fixing the other half in place.

To force a formula to use an absolute reference, one specifies the cell address with a dollar sign - $C$1 will always point to (use) the contents of cell C1, regardless of where the formula ends up.

So when that formula is filled into other cells (either by Fill Down, or dragging the little handle in the corner of the cell outline, or by copy-pasting the formula into a range of selected cells) the new formulas are similarly treated, by default, as referring to the cell that is one column back from them, in the same row.

In Excel, a formula in cell D1, that points to a cell in C1, is treated as a relative reference - that is, one column back from where I am now. I don't have OpenOffice in front of me, but it tries really hard to be Excel like in many ways, so usually assumptions about Calc based on Excel are fairly close to reality.

Formulas en openoffice calc