Excel Formulas

Formulas

Formulas in Excel are used to make mathematical calculations.  Formulas can help balance your budget or make a table of physics data instantly.  Pretty cool! 

 

Traditional Formulas

The traditional way of entering a formula is to simply type it in.

  1. Activate the cell where you want the result of the calculation to appear.

  2. Remember, every formula must begin with an “=” sign.

  3. Type in the cell addresses and operators that you want.

 

In the screen above, you will see that in cell C1 the entered simple formula is =A1+B1, and the result is displayed in the cell.


Point-and-Click Formulas

There is an easier way to enter formulas, and that is by using the point and click method. 

  1.  Activate the cell where you want the result of the calculation to appear. 

  2.  Enter the “=”

  3. Click the first cell you want in your formula.

  4. Type in the operator.

  5. Click the second cell you want to reference in the formula  

  6. Hit enter.


Complex Formulas

Formulas involving more than one operator are complex.  There are some rules by which these formulas are calculated.

  1. Formulas are calculated from left to right: 15/3+2 is 7, not 3

  2. Multiplication and division are calculated before addition and subtraction.

  3. Operations within parenthesis are calculated first.


Filling Formulas

Filling is a form of copying.  The small square black box on the lower right corner of the selected cell is call the “fill handle”.  You can copy the formula of one cell to adjacent cells by clicking and dragging this little black box to the cells you want to “fill”.

Notice in the above photo that the fill has copied the formula to a number of cells (C2:C8), and that the sums of column A and B are added together.

Totaling Columns and Rows

Excel has an easy one-step method of totaling a row or column.  Simply highlight the numbers in the row or column that you would like to add, including a blank cell where you want the sum to appear.

Then click on the AutoSum button in the toolbar.  It looks like this - .

Excel will then place a formula in the blank cell that will add the column or row instantly.

Commonly Used Formulas

Below is a list of the most commonly used formulas in our labs:

To find the slope of a line =SLOPE(known_y's,known_x's)

Example: =SLOPE(B1:B6,A1:A6)

Adding a row or column =SUM(A1:A5)

Note - Will add the values A1+A2+A3+A4+A5+A6

 
Top
Revised:  November 09, 2004
for: http://www.cuyamaca.net/lrc
by:  Katherine Meek