Excel Write Formula (Table of Contents)
Writing Formula in Excel
What would be your answer when I ask you “What is Excel?” A tool that helps to store, slicing and dicing the data plus a tool that can help us calculate sums, percentages, interest rates, etc. right? The most essential as well as an important part of Excel is a formula. The formula is nothing but an equation that allows you to perform various calculations under Microsoft Excel. These formulae are the easiest way of calculation based on the given data. However, being new to Excel, you might not always be able to handle the Excel formulae. It is very easy and simple though to add formulae under Excel. Through this article, we will try to make you literate about how to write different formulae under Excel and you will be master in applying the same after going through this article.
Let’s see how we can create/write a formula under Excel.
The first thing we should know is, every Excel formula starts with the equals to sign (‘=’) inside an Excel cell. After this sign, you can write the equation in which you want Excel to perform calculations or any inbuilt function name (Ex. SUM) which performs a calculation and returns the output in a given cell.
How to Write Formula in Excel?
Let’s understand How to Write formula in excel with a few examples.
Example #1
Step 1: Suppose we have two numbers 120 and 240 in cell A1 and A2 respectively in the Excel sheet. See the screenshot below:
Now, I want to add these two numbers, We’ll see how this can be achieved.
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Step 2: In cell A4, start typing the equation by simply using equals to sign and then use 120 + 240 to add these two values up. See the screenshot below for a better understanding.
Step 3: Press Enter Key to see the result. You can see 360 as a result of cell A4 as shown below.
This is how a basic formula can be entered under Microsoft Excel. Now, what if we change the numbers in cell A1 and A2 to some different values? Will the formula under cell A3 change values? Well, let’s see by doing so.
Step 4: Change the numbers in cell A1 and A2 to 120 and 240 respectively.
If you will check cell A3, it is still showing the result for old values (i.e. 120 + 140 = 360). Because in cell A3, we have used the equation as 120 + 140. These are values that are fixed and not the dynamic ones. Therefore, in order to get rid of such a situation, Excel also provides an option to be able to use dynamic ranges under an equation/formula for that sake.
Step 5: In cell A3, tweak the formula to =A2+ A3. What we tried doing here is, instead of giving number as an argument, we have supplied the cells which contain a number as an argument. This will be beneficial when you change the numbers in cells A2, A3, values in cell A4 will automatically change after performing the operations. This is how making you formula dynamic using a range of cells work.
After using the above formula the output shown below:
Now, if I change the values under cell A1 and A2, the results in cell A3 will automatically change. See the screenshot below.
Example #2
Excel has a more user-friendly approach when it comes to applying the formula. You just can simply copy-paste formula from one cell to another by dragging it through. Let’s see how to do it.
Suppose we have data as shown below across the first and second row of different columns (A to E) and we wanted to get a sum for each column in their third-row respectively. We’ll see how excel works on this situation.
Step 1: In cell A3, create an equation using a dynamic range of cells that sums the values under A1 and A2. You can use =A1+A2 as a formula under cell A3 to get the sum of the numbers within those cells.
Also, Press Enter key to see the output in cell A3.
Step 2: Now, select the cell A3 and then drag the formula across A3 to E3 to apply the same formula that sums up the first and second row for each column. You should get the output as shown in the screenshot below:
Well, you have multiple ways to achieve this result. You can select the entire third row across column A to E and just press Ctrl + R to copy and paste the formula under cell A3 to other columns. Or else, you can copy the formula under cell A3 by Ctrl + C and paste it one by one in each of B3, C3, D3, E3 to achieve the same result.
Example #3
In this example, we will work on using the built-in Excel functions. How to use the built-in Excel function to perform a task (ex. Summing number across the rows).
Consider the same data as shown in example 2 and we wanted to have sum of the first two rows of each column within the third row. However, this time we will use a built-in Excel function named SUM to achieve this result.
Step 1: In cell A3, start typing =SUM, it will pop-up a list of all functions that contain SUM as a keyword. Select the SUM function through that list by double-clicking on it.
Step 2: Select the range of cells A1 to A2 with the use of your computer mouse or laptop touchpad as an argument to the SUM function. Because these are the cells that we wanted to sum up.
Well, you also can use the comma to separate the values instead of these ranges.
Step 3: Complete this formula by adding closing parentheses at the end of this function and press the Enter key to get the sum of cell A1 and A2 under cell A3.
Well, this function precedes the equation which we use in Example 2 by a huge margin when we have tons of data. Ex. Consider you have 5 Lacs Excel Rows and you wanted to sum those up. You surely would not like to input each cell reference for 5 Lacs of time, would you?
Step 4: You can drag this formula across the different columns for the same row or user Ctrl + R to populate it across all the rows or copy and paste one by one to each column. The choice is all yours. You’ll get the final output as shown below:
This is it from this article. Let’s wrap the things up with some points to be remembered:
Things to Remember About Write Formula in Excel
- In order to be able to use a formula in Excel, you need to start it with equals to sign. You also can start a formula with Plus or minus sign.
- You can have different operational formulae of our own for subtraction, multiplication, division, squaring a number, etc. However, all these operations are better to do with built-in Excel functions because these functions precede over operational formulae.
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