101 Ready-to-Use Excel Formulas

Michael Alexander, Richard Kusleika

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781118902684
• eBook ISBN: 9781118902592
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencia de la computación
• Subtopic: Aplicaciones de escritorio

Mr. Spreadsheet has done it again with 101 easy-to-apply Excel formulas

101 Ready-to-Use Excel Formulas is filled with the most commonly-used, real-world Excel formulas that can be repurposed and put into action, saving you time and increasing your productivity. Each segment of this book outlines a common business or analysis problem that needs to be solved and provides the actual Excel formulas to solve the problem—along with detailed explanation of how the formulas work.

Written in a user-friendly style that relies on a tips and tricks approach, the book details how to perform everyday Excel tasks with confidence. 101 Ready-to-Use Excel Formulas is sure to become your well-thumbed reference to solve your workplace problems. The recipes in the book are structured to first present the problem, then provide the formula solution, and finally show how it works so that it can be customized to fit your needs. The companion website to the book allows readers to easily test the formulas and provides visual confirmation of the concepts presented.

• Teaches you how to implement the required Excel formula
• Explains and details how the formulas work
• Lets you reuse or customize the given formula to address your particular needs
• Helps you make the formulas a regular part of your new, more efficient workflow

Specific real-world scenarios are used to demonstrate how to most effectively apply Excel and its powerful formulas to complete tasks faster and with greater accuracy than ever before. Now you can save time, automate, and be more efficient and productive with 101 Ready-to-Use Excel Formulas.

Chapter 1: Introducing Excel Formulas

Microsoft Excel is, at its core, a calculation engine. Like a calculator, it accepts a question (such as 2+2) and gives you an answer. When you’re working with a calculator, these questions are called mathematical operations. In Excel, you call these formulas.

Excel allows you to use formulas to perform not only mathematical operations but also a myriad of other complex actions, such as parsing textual values, searching for certain values in a range of data, performing recursive calculations, and much more.

To leverage the full power of Excel formulas, you need to understand how Excel formulas work as well as some of the ground rules for working with formulas. The goal of this chapter, therefore, is for you to get acquainted with the fundamentals of using Excel formulas.

Feel free to skip over this chapter if you already have a solid understanding of formula mechanics and want to get right into real-world examples, which start in Chapter 2.

You can download the files for all the formulas at www.wiley.com/go/101excelformula.

Creating and Editing Excel Formulas

An Excel spreadsheet is simply a collection of cells that you can use to enter data. Each cell is given a name based on its position in the spreadsheet. The top-leftmost cell is called cell A1. It’s the cell located in column A, row 1. When you enter a value in cell A1 (for example, the number 5), that cell’s value becomes 5. If you enter the number 10 in cell B1, that cell’s value becomes 10. You can use then use these values in a formula.

For instance, you can click cell C1 and begin typing =A1+B1, as shown in Figure 1-1. Note how you can see your formula in both the cell you’re typing in and the Formula Bar above the column headings.

Figure 1-1: Entering a basic formula.

After you press the Enter key on your keyboard, Excel recognizes what you’re asking and performs the calculation that gives you the result of 15 (5+10 = 15).

The reason Excel recognizes that you were entering a formula and not just another value is the equal sign (=). Entering the equal sign followed by other values tells Excel that you’re starting a formula. In this example, we used what are known as cell references (A1 and B1). These cell references are just one of the types of values that you can use in your formulas.

Excel formulas accept the following types of values:

• Constants: You can use hard-coded numbers directly in a formula. For example, you can enter =5+10 directly into a cell to get the answer 15.
• Operators: These include symbols that perform addition (+), symbols that perform multiplication (*), symbols that compare values (>), and symbols that join values together (&). For example, entering =15>10 into a cell returns TRUE as the result because 15 is indeed greater than 10.
• Cell references: These include any value that points back to a single cell or range of cells. As you’ve already seen, entering =A1+B1 in a cell tells Excel to use the values in those two cells in the formula.
• Text strings: Any text string can be used as an argument in a formula as long as it’s wrapped in quotation marks. For example, entering =“Microsoft”&”Excel” in any cell results in the joined text Microsoft Excel.

Methods for entering formulas

You have several ways to actually enter a formula into a cell:

• Enter the formula directly into a cell: Simply click a cell, begin typing your formula, and then press the Enter key on your keyboard.
• Enter the formula into the Formula Bar: Click inside the Formula Bar found above the column headers, type your formula, and then press the Enter key on your keyboard.
• Enter the formula using the mouse: If your formula involves cell references, you can use the mouse to help reduce the amount of typing you need to do. For instance, instead of typing =A1+B1, you can type the equal symbol, use your mouse to click cell A1, type the plus symbol, use the mouse to click cell B1, and then press the Enter key.
• Enter the formula using the arrow keys: If your formula involves cell references, you can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to help reduce the amount of typing you need to do. For instance, instead of typing =A1+B1, you can type the equal symbol, use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move the cursor to cell A1, type the plus (+) symbol, use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move the cursor to cell B1, and then press the Enter key.

Editing a formula

If you find that you need to edit a formula, you can do so in three ways:

• Edit directly in the Formula Bar: Select the cell that contains your formula, go up to the Formula Bar, and start editing the formula there.
• Double-click the formula cell: You can edit the formula directly in the cell it’s in by double-clicking the cell. Double-clicking the cell gets you into Edit mode, where you can edit the formula as needed.
• Press F2: Select the cell that contains your formula and then press F2 on your keyboard to get into Edit mode. As stated previously, you can then edit the formula as needed.

Using Formula Operators

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, you can use symbols known as operators to define the operation your formula will accomplish. Some of these operators are mathematical operators that simply add, subtract, and multiply. Other operators allow you to perform more complex actions such as comparing values. For example, you can determine whether an employee has met his or her quota by using a comparison operator to see if actual sales are greater than or equal to a predetermined quota.

Table 1-1 lists the operators you can use in your Excel formulas.

Table 1-1: Operators for Excel Formulas

Operator	What It Does
+	The plus symbol adds two or more numeric values.
-	The hyphen symbol subtracts two or more numeric values.
/	The forward slash symbol divides two or more numeric values.
*	The asterisk symbol divides two or more numeric values.
%	The percent symbol indicates a numeric percent. Entering a percent sign after a whole number divides the number by 100 and formats the cell as a percentage.
&	The ampersand symbol is used to join or concatenate two or more textual values.
^	The carat symbol is used as an exponentiation operator.
=	The equal symbol is used to evaluate whether one value is equal to another value
>	The greater-than symbol is used to evaluate whether one value is greater than another value.
<	The less-than symbol is used to evaluate whether one value is less than another value.
>=	The greater-than symbol used in conjunction with the equal symbol evaluates whether one value is greater than or equal to another value.
<=	The less-than symbol used in conjunction with the equal symbol evaluates whether one value is less than or equal to another value.
<>	The less-than symbol used in conjunction with the greater-than symbol evaluates whether one value is not equal to another value.

Understanding the order of operator precedence

It’s important to understand that when you create a formula with several operators, Excel evaluates and performs the calculation in a specific order. For instance, Excel always p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Introducing Excel Formulas
• Chapter 2: Common Mathematical Operations
• Chapter 3: Manipulating Text with Formulas
• Chapter 4: Working with Dates and Times
• Chapter 5: Performing Conditional Analysis
• Chapter 6: Using Lookup Formulas
• Chapter 7: Common Business and Financial Formulas
• Chapter 8: Common Statistical Analyses
• Chapter 9: Using Formulas with Conditional Formatting
• About the Authors
• End User License Agreement