The reference mass is the component mass to which the application compares the mass of all other components in the deconvoluted spectrum for an intact mass analysis experiment. This mass comparison is used to calculate the Delta Mass values reported in the Results table on the Process and Review page.
The default reference mass is usually the mass of the most abundant peak, but you can select the mass of another component in the Results table to use as the reference mass by right-clicking the row of the component whose mass you want to use as the reference mass and choosing Set as Reference Component from the shortcut menu. See Results table commands.
The Delta Mass value of the new reference component is set to 0. The application then recalculates and updates the Delta Mass values for all of these components in the Results table.