Guide to Commonly Used Microsoft Excel Formulas

Excel formulas allow you to assign the results of a calculation to a cell. A Microsoft Excel formula can be as simple or complicated as you require, but each formula has the same basic structure: an equal sign "=" followed by the operations to be carried out. The "=" symbol lets the program know that what follows will be a mathematical operation.

How to Use a Microsoft Excel Formula
An Excel formula is composed of the "=" sign followed by a combination of functions, cell references, constants and mathematical operators.

Functions are keywords Excel uses to trigger sophisticated operations. Functions like AVERAGE, COUNT, and CONVERT simplify operations that would take many steps to perform manually.

Cell references are the column and row labels combined: F3, A7 and B28 are examples of cell references. Cell references can be relative (A7) or absolute ($A$7). Relative cell references call up cells relative to the position of the formula, while absolute cell references always use cells in a specific location. Relative references automatically adjust when you copy them, while absolute references don't. You can use the colon symbol ":" to define a range of cells. For example, (A3:A9) refers to all cells from A3 to A9.

Constants are simple numeric values that don't change. Using 12 for the number of months in year or 24 for the number of hours in a day are examples of constants.

Mathematical operators are the basic operations performed on numbers:

• Subtraction: minus sign ( - )
• Addition: plus sign ( + )
• Division: forward slash ( / )
• Multiplication: asterisk (* )
• Exponentiation: caret (^ )

A typical formula might look like this: =A7/F3. This formula would divide the value of cell A7 by the value of cell F3.

Common Excel Formula Examples

• Calculate the average of the numbers in a series of cells: =AVERAGE(A3:A9)
• Round a number to the nearest whole number: =ROUND(A3,0)
• Convert measurements: =CONVERT(A3,"C","F") converts centigrade to Fahrenheit. A complete list of measurement types can be found in the CONVERT function help topic in Excel.