Section: Formulas
...Subsection: Some quick examples

It's a lot easier to play with formulas than it is to explain them, so we'll do some quick examples.

The first thing you'll notice is that they all start with a special formula character. Most modern spreadsheets use the equals sign (=); some older programs use the plus sign (+).

In either case,

• The first character of every formula must be the formula character
• The formula character has no effect on anything else. More specifically, it doesn't act as an equals sign or a plus sign or anything else.
• The formula character appears exactly once; as the first character in the cell.

Q. 7

What's with the formula character?

For these examples, I've used the equals sign as the formula character. Note, too, that the actual names of the functions may be different in your spreadsheet; use the online help to track down the correct name.

=10 + 5

An incredibly simple formula, it does exactly what you think it would; it adds 10 and 5 and comes up with 15.

=A1

This forms a simple connection between the cell A1 and the cell that contains the formula. It says "Make sure I'm showing whatever cell A1 is showing". As soon as you change the contents of cell A1, this cell will change immediately as well.

=A1 + 10

Pretty much the same as the last one, except this cell will always contain the value of A1 plus 10.

=A1 + B4

Again, the same, but this time we're referring to two cells. Change either one of them and the cell containing the formula will automatically update itself.

=A1/20

A1 divided by 20

=A1 * B1 + C3

Multiplies A1 and B1, and then adds C3

=A1 * (B1 + C3)

Here, we use parenthesis to change the normal order of operations. Add B1 and C3, and then multiply the result by A1.

Remember that arithmetic follows a set order of operations: stuff in parenthesis, followed by multiplication and division, followed by addition and subtraction.

=A1+A2+A3+A4+A5+A6

Add up all the values of cells A1 through A6. Wait, didn't we have a better way to do this?

=sum(A1:A6)

Aha! This uses a built-in function called "sum". It takes one argument (a range of cells to add up). Be careful with the way it looks; formula character, followed by the name of the function, followed by the argument(s) in parenthesis. Again, remember that the actual name may be different for your particular spreadsheet.

=maximum(B1:C4)

Find the biggest value in the range.

=minimum(B1:C4}

Find the smallest value in the range

=maximum(B1:C4) - minimum(B1:C4)

Find the difference between the biggest value and the smallest value in the range B1:C4. Note that the formula character appears once, at the beginning of the formula. Novices often want to put the formula character before every function name.

=average(A1:A10)

As you'd expect, this averages the values in the given range.

Q. 8

How do I find out what built-in functions are available besides sum and average?