Hello everyone! Did you know…I am often asked what are the basic Microsoft Excel formulas?
What do basic Microsoft Excel formulas do ?
A formula makes some sort of calculation and shows the result of itself in the cell.
Where do we see the formula ?
The formula of course remains intact and is visible too in the Formula Bar on top but we see the result in the cell in the body or main part of our spreadsheet.
How do you start a formula ?
We must always start a formula with the “=” operator to tell Microsoft Excel that we are now entering a formula.
Some examples
In a basic Microsoft Excel formula you could, for example, work with the values from two cells; D5 and F5.
You could
add: “=D5+F5”
subtract: “=D5-F5”
multiply: “=D5*F5”
divide: “=D5/F5”
The cell reference
Also, letters signify columns and numbers are for rows in our cell references in our basic Microsoft Excel formulas.
The SUM function used in a basic formula
The SUM formula must be the most basic Microsoft Excel function used in a formula. We can sum any range. Just provide the range to the SUM function. It acts just like summing up on a hand-held calculator but doing it in Microsoft Excel, so long as we save our file, we have a permanent record of our summation or totalling.
Use a basic formula to join text
Adding or joining text is easy with the “&” symbol. E.g. =D5&” “&F5 with “Spreadsheet” in D5 and “Interaction” in F5 will result in “Spreadsheet Interaction” with one space between the two words.
Even basic logic too
You can also apply logic, TRUE or FALSE, to basic Microsoft Excel formulas. See my video on the IF Statement:
www.spreadsheeti.com/if-statements