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Lecture 17 - Elements of Microsoft Excel Formulas

Elements of Microsoft Excel formulas include: 1) Constants, cell references, range references, names, and functions which supply data values. 2) Operators such as arithmetic, comparison, concatenation, and reference operators which specify calculation types. 3) Common operators are plus (+) and minus (-) for arithmetic, equals (=) for comparison, ampersand (&) for concatenation, colon (:) for ranges, and comma (,) to separate function arguments.

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624 views10 pages

Lecture 17 - Elements of Microsoft Excel Formulas

Elements of Microsoft Excel formulas include: 1) Constants, cell references, range references, names, and functions which supply data values. 2) Operators such as arithmetic, comparison, concatenation, and reference operators which specify calculation types. 3) Common operators are plus (+) and minus (-) for arithmetic, equals (=) for comparison, ampersand (&) for concatenation, colon (:) for ranges, and comma (,) to separate function arguments.

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Elements of Microsoft Excel formulas

Elements of Microsoft Excel formulas


• When you make a formula in Excel, you can use different elements to supply the source data to the formula
and indicate what operators should be performed on those data. Depending on the formula type that you
create, it can include any or all of the following parts:

• Constants - numbers or text values that you enter directly in a formula, like =2*3.
• Cell references - reference to a cell containing the value you want to use in your Excel formula, e.g.
=SUM(A1, A2, B5).
• To refer to data in two or more contiguous cells, use a range reference like A1:A5. For example, to sum values
in all cell between A1 and A5, inclusive, use this formula:
• =SUM(A1:A5).

• Names - defined name for a cell range, constant, table, or function, for example =SUM(my_name).
• Functions - predefined formulas in Excel that perform calculations using the values supplied in their
arguments.
• Operators - special symbols that specify the type of operation or calculation to be performed.
Elements of Microsoft Excel formulas
Operators in Excel worksheet formulas
• To tell Microsoft Excel what type of operation you want to perform in a
formula, you use special symbols that are technically called operators.
There exist 4 types of operators in Excel:
• Arithmetic - to perform basic mathematical operations.
• Comparison (logical) - to compare values.
• Concatenation - to join text values into a single string.
• Reference - to make rages and separate arguments in Excel functions.
Operators in Excel worksheet formulas
• Using arithmetic operators in Excel formulas
• These operators are used to perform basic mathematical operations such as addition,
subtraction, multiplication, and division.
Operators in Excel worksheet formulas
• Comparison operators in Excel formulas
• In Microsoft Excel formulas, comparison, or logical, operators are used to
compare two values. The result of the comparison is always a logical value
of TRUE or FALSE. The following logical operators are available in Excel:
Operators in Excel worksheet formulas
• Text concatenation operator
Text concatenation operator in Excel is the
ampersand symbol (&). You can use it to join
two or more text strings in a single string.
For example, if you have country codes in
column A and telephone numbers in column B,
you can use the following formula to get the
telephone numbers combined with the country
codes:
=A1&" "&B1
In the above formula, we concatenate a space "
" in between to make the numbers better
readable:
Reference operators in Excel formulas
and functions
• To supply rages to MS Excel formulas and separate arguments in Excel
functions, the following operators are used.
• Colon (:) - it is a range operator that allows you to make one reference for
multiple cells located between 2 cells that you specify.
• For example, range A1:A00 includes 100 cells from A1 through A100. To
find an average of those 100 cells, you use the following formula:
=AVERAGE(A1:A00)
• You can also refer to the entire column (A:A) or the entire row (1:1). For
example, the following formula finds the total of all numbers in column A:
=SUM(A:A). Find more about whole-column and whole-row references.
• Comma (,) - is used to separate arguments in Excel spreadsheet
formulas. For example, the formula =IF(A1>0, "good", "bad") reads as
follows: if A1 is greater than zero, return "good", otherwise "bad".
Reference operators in Excel formulas
and functions
• Note. Comma is the default List Separator in North America and some
other countries. In European countries, comma is reserved as the Decimal
Symbol and the List Separator is usually set to semicolon (;). In this case,
you need to separate a function's arguments with semicolons, e.g.
=IF(A1>0; "good"; "bad").
• So, if you are trying to make a formula in your worksheet, but Excel does
not accept it and throws up an "invalid formula" error, go to your Regional
Settings (Control Panel > Region and Language > Additional Settings) and
check what symbol is set as List Separator there. It is that symbol that
you need to use to separate arguments in your Excel formulas.
Reference operators in Excel formulas
and functions
• pace - it is an intersection operator that lets you get the cell(s) common
to the two references that you specify. For example, if you a list of items
in column A and some related data in other columns, you can get a value at
the
• intersection of a given column and row by using a formula like this:
=B3:D3 C2:C4

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