Excel formulas are used to act on numbers or other data in Excel spreadsheets. The basic ones are easy to use and very rewarding. Some of the more difficult ones, like VLOOKUP (which searches for one value and returns a corresponding value in another column; for example using VLOOKUP on “Pat” in a hypothetical list of people tells me she is 8th on the list), have the potential to be very rewarding but require some time to learn and get right. Formulas become more useful, and even necessary, if you have more data in your spreadsheet.
Example:
=AVERAGE(A2:A7)
This formula would give you the average of all the numbers in the cells A2 to A7. The equal sign is necessary to make Excel understand that you are using a formula. The range you intend the formula to act on goes between the parentheses, and can be either typed in or selected by highlighting the desired cells. You can also choose individual cells to use as the range. Note that if you change any number in any cell in the range, the answer in the cell with the formula will change as well. The formula itself is usually a word or set of letters that Excel assigns a meaning. The most basic are AVERAGE and SUM, with obvious properties.
You can also do regular math in Excel. For example, =E7+F8*H8–G8/E8 does the required math for you and spits out the answer in the cell where the formula was entered. (Excel follows order of operations.) It’s even better than a calculator, in that if you decide to change the value of E7, the answer in the cell with the formula changes as well.
By ITA, Hillary Shipps