Why Are Excel Formulas Important?

Excel formulas are essential for several reasons:

1. Efficiency: They automate repetitive tasks, saving time and reducing
manual errors.
2. Data analysis: Excel's range of formulas enables sophisticated data
analysis, crucial for informed decision-making.
3. Accuracy: Formulas ensure consistent and accurate results,
essential in fields like finance and accounting.
4. Data manipulation: They allow for efficient sorting, filtering, and
manipulation of large datasets.
5. Accessibility: Excel provides a user-friendly platform, making
complex data analysis accessible to non-technical users.
6. Versatility: Widely used across various industries, proficiency in
Excel formulas enhances employability and career advancement.
7. Customization: Excel offers customizable formula options to meet
specific data handling needs.
In essence, Excel formulas are a foundational tool for effective data
management, analysis, and decision-making.

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How to Use Excel Formulas

Adding the Excel formula is relatively easy. It will come to you naturally if
you are familiar with any business intelligence software.
The most effective and fast way to use formulas is by adding them
manually. In the example below, we are calculating the BMI (Body Mass
Index) of the athletes shown in the table.
BMI = weight (KG)/ (Height (m))2
1. Choose the cell for the resulting output. You can use the mouse to
select the cell or use the arrow key to navigate.
 2. Type = in the cell. The equal sign will appear in the cell and formula
bar.
3. Type the address of the cell that we want to use for our calculation. In
our case, it is E2 (weight/KG).
4. Add divide sign /
5. To convert height from centimeters to a meter, we will divide
the D2 by 100.
6. Take the squared ^2 of the height and press Enter.
Note: To get the address of any cell, you need to look at the column name
(A, B, C, … ) and combine it with a row number (1, 2, 3, …). For example,
A2, B5, and C12
That’s it; we have successfully calculated the BMI of A Dijiang.

Adding Excel formula | Author

We can also add the Excel formula by using assisted GUI. It is simple.
In the example below, we will be using GUI to add an IF() functon to convert
‘M’ to ‘Male’ and ‘F’ to Female.
1. Click on the fx button next to the formula bar.
2. It will pop up in the window with the most used function.
3. You can either search for the specific formula or select the formula by
scrolling. In our case, we will be specifying the IF() function.
4. Add the logic B2="M” into the logical_test argument.
5. Add “Male” in value_if_true argument
and “Female” in value_if_false argument.
This works similarly to an if-else statement. If the logical_test statement
is TRUE, the formula will return “Male” otherwise “Female.”
 Excel formula using UI | Author

How to insert formulas in Excel for an entire column

We have learned to add the formula to a single row. Now, we will learn to
apply the same formula to the entire column.
There are multiple ways to add formulas:
 Dragging down the fill handle: when you select the cell, you will
see the small green box at the bottom right. It is called a fill handle.
Click and hold the fill handle and drag it down to the last row. It is
commonly used to apply formulas to selected rows.
 Double click the fill handle: select the cell with the formula and
double click the fill handle. Within seconds it will apply the formula to
the entire column.
 Shortcut: select the cell with the formula and the empty cells below
it. Press CTRL + D to apply the formula. Make sure you are not
selecting anything above the formula cell.
 Copy-pasting: copy the cell with the formula (CTRL + C), select the
empty rows in a column, and paste it (CTRL + V). Make sure you are
not using a fill handle to select the rows.
The visual representation below shows all the ways we can apply the
formula to multiple cells.
 Formula for an entire column | Author

Basic Formulas in Excel

Let's now review important formulas in Excel. We will start by looking at
common and important functions, which, as we said, are built-in operations
that can be used within formulas to perform specific tasks.
For this section, we will use a small subset of
the Olympics dataset from DataCamp. To keep things simple, we
will mainly use the name, sex, age, height, and weight columns of
four athletes' records. For each of these, you will be writing the
function name and arguments. That’s it, nothing complex.

1. SUM()

The SUM() function performs addition on selected cells. It works on cells

containing numerical values and requires two or more cells.
In our case, we will be applying the SUM() function to a range of cells from
C2 to C5 and storing the result on C6. It will add 24, 23, 21, and 31. You
can also apply this function to multiple columns.
=SUM(C2:C5)

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2. MIN() and MAX()

The MIN() function requires a range of cells, and it returns the minimum
value. For example, we want to display the minimum weight among all
athletes on the E6 cell. The MIN() function will search for the minimum value
and show 60.
=MIN(E2:E5)

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The MAX() function is the opposite of MIN(). It will return the maximum value
from the selected range of cells. The function will look for the maximum
value and return 82.
=MAX(E2:E5)

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3. AVERAGE()

The AVERAGE() function calculates the average of selected cells. You can
provide a range of cells (C2:C5) or select individual cells (C2, C3, C5).
To calculate the average of athletes, we will select the age column, apply
the average function, and return the result to the C7 cell. It will sum up the
total values in the selected cells and divide them by 4.
=AVERAGE(C2:C5)

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4. COUNT()

The COUNT() function counts the total number of selected cells. It will not
count the blank cells and different data formats other than numeric.
We will count the total number of athlete weights, and it will return 4, as we
don’t have missing values or strings.
=COUNT(E2:E5)

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To count all types of cells (date-time, string, numerical), you need to use
the COUNTA() function.
The COUNTA() function does not count missing values. For blank cells,
use COUNTBLANK().

5. POWER()

In the beginning, we learned to add power using ^, which is not an efficient

way of applying power to a cell. Instead, we recommended using
the POWER() function to square, cube, or apply any raise to power to your
cell.
In our case, we have divided D2 by 100 to get height in meters and
squared it by using the POWER() function with the second argument as 2.
=POWER(D2/100,2)

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6. CEILING() and FLOOR()

The CEILING() function rounds a number up to the nearest given multiple. In

our case, we will round 3.24 up to a multiple of 1 and get 4. If the multiple is
5, it will round up the number 3.24 to 5.
=CEILING(F2,1)

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FLOOR() rounds a number down to the nearest given multiple. As we can

see in the image below, instead of converting 3.24 to 4, it has rounded the
number to 3.
=FLOOR(F2,1)

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7. CONCAT()

The CONCAT() Excel function joins or merges multiple strings or cells with
strings into one. For example, if we want to join the age and sex of the
athletes, we will use CONCAT(). The function will automatically convert a
numeric value from age to string and combine it.
“24”+“M” = “24M”
=CONCAT(C2,B2)

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8. TRIM()

TRIM()is used to remove extra spaces from the start, middle, and end. It is
commonly used to identify duplicate values in cells, and for some reason,
extra space makes it unique.
For example:
1. There are extra two spaces at A3 “A Lamusi”, and it has been
successfully removed by TRIM().
 2. At A4 “ Christie Jacoba Aaftink”, there is extra space at the start, and
without writing any complex function, TRIM() has removed it.
=TRIM(A4)

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9. REPLACE() and SUBSTITUTE()

REPLACE() is used for replacing part of the string with a new string.
REPLACE(old_text, start_num, num_chars, new_text)
 old_text is the original text or cell containing the text.
 start_numis the index position that you want to start replacing the
character.
 num_chars refers to the number of characters you want to replace.
 new_text indicates the new text that you want to replace with old text.
For example, we will change A Dijiang with B Dijiang by providing the
positing of character, which is 1, the number of characters that we want to
replace, which is also 1, and the new character “B”.
=REPLACE(A2,1,1,"B")

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The SUBSTITUTE() function is similar to REPLACE(). Instead of providing the
location of a character or the number of characters, we will only provide old
text and new text.
SUBSTITUTE(text, old_text, new_text, [instance_num])
In our case, we are replacing "Jacoba" with "Rahim" to display the result on
A4 cell “Christine Rahim Aaftink.”
This function is quite useful as it does not change the text without “Jacoba”
as shown below in cell A5, “Per Knut Aaland.” Whereas, REPLACE() will
replace the text every time.
=SUBSTITUTE(A4,"Jacoba","Rahim")

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10. LEFT(), RIGHT(), and MID()

The LEFT() function returns the number of characters from the start of the
string or text.
For example, to display the first name from the text “Christine Jacoba
Aaftink”, you will use LEFT() with 9 numbers of characters. As a result, it will
show the first nine characters; “Christine.”
=LEFT(A2,9)

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The MID() function requires a starting position and length to extract the
characters from the middle.
For example, if you want to display a middle name, you will start with “J”
which is at the 11th position, and 6 for the length of the middle name
“Jacoba”.
=MID(A2,11,6)

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The RIGHT() function will return the number of characters from the end. You
just need to provide a number of characters.
For example, to display the last name “Aaftink,” we will use RIGHT() with
seven characters.
=RIGHT(A2,7)

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11. UPPER(), LOWER(), and PROPER()

The UPPER(), LOWER(), and PROPER() functions are basic string operations.
You can find similar in Tableau or in Python. These functinos only require a
text, the location of the cell containing string, or the range of cells with
string.
UPPER() will convert all the letters in the text to uppercase.
=UPPER(A1:F1)

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LOWER() will convert the selected text to lowercase.

=LOWER(A1:F1)

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PROPER() will convert the string to the proper case. For example, the first
letter in each word will be capitalized, and the rest of them will be
lowercase.
=PROPER(A1:F1)

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12. NOW() and TODAY()

NOW() returns the current time and date, and TODAY() returns only the
current date. These are quite simple, and we will use them to extract a day,
month, year, hours, and minutes from any date time data cell.
The example below returns the current date and time.
=NOW()

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To extract the seconds from the time, you will use the SECOND() function.
=SECOND(NOW())

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Similarly, TODAY() will return only the current date.

=TODAY()

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To extract the day, you will use the DAY() function.
Furthermore, you can extract month, year, weekday, day names, hours,
and minutes from the date time data field.
=DAY(TODAY())

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13. DATEDIF()

It is the most used function for time series data sets.

The DATEDIF() calculates the difference between two dates and returns the
number of days, months, weeks, or years based on your preference.
In the example below, we want to return the date difference in days by
providing “d” for unit arguments. Make sure that the first argument is the
start date and the second argument in the function is the end date.
start_date < end_date
=DATEDIF(A2,B2,"d")

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14. VLOOKUP() and HLOOKUP()

The worksheet1 that we will use in this section contains all the data
from the Olympics dataset.

worksheet1
The VLOOKUP() function searches for the value in the leftmost column of the
table array and returns the value from the same row from the specified
columns.
VLOOKUP(lookup_value, table_array, col_index,
range_lookup)
 lookup_value: the value you are looking for that is present in the first
column.
 table_array:
the range of the table, worksheet, or selected cell with
multiple columns.
 col_index: the position of the column to extract the value.
 range_lookup:
“True” is used for the approximate match (default), and
“FALSE” is used for the exact match.
In our case, we are looking for A Dijiang (A2) from selected columns and
rows of worksheet1 (B2:H20). The VLOOKUP() function will check the name
column in worksheet one and return the 6th column value that is team
“China”.
=VLOOKUP(A2,worksheet1!B2:H20,6,FALSE)

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HLOOKUP() searches for the value in the first row instead of the first column.
It returns the value from the same column and the row you specified.
HLOOKUP(lookup_value, table_array, row_index,
range_lookup)
In our case, we will display A Dijaing’s sex on the D8 cell.
The HLOOKUP() function will look for the name in the first row and return the
value “M'' from the 2nd row of the same column. The range_lookup is kept
FALSE in both cases for the exact match.
=HLOOKUP(B1,B1;E5,2,FALSE)

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15. IF()
The IF() Excel function is straightforward. It is similar to an if-else statement
in a programming language. We will provide the logic of the function. If the
logic is correct, it will return a certain value; if the logic is false, it will return
a different value.
For example, if the BMI of athletics is less than 23.9, the function will return
the string “Fit”, else “Unfit”. It is quite useful to convert numerical values into
categories.
=IF(G2<24.9,"Fit,"Unfit")

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Other Kinds of Formulas in Excel

Now, let's look at other kinds of Excel formulas, including formulas using
operators, array formulas, and formula-based conditional formatting.

Formulas using operators

Even something as simple as A1 + A2 is a formula because it performs a

calculation using cell references and an operator, just like more complex
formulas. Excel can also update the result dynamically based on changes
in A1 or A2. All of these count as formulas:
 Addition: =A1 + B1
 Subtraction: =A1 - B1
 Multiplication: =A1 * B1
 Division: =A1 / B1
All this seems basic but it is also the foundation of more advanced patterns
like sequences and recursive calculations. Here is how we might create
a Fibonacci sequence:
  Enable iterative calculations by going to File > Options >
Formulas and clicking Enable Iterative Calculation. Set the
maximum iterations.
 Enter the following in cell A3 (assuming A1=0 and A2=1) and drag
down.

Array formulas

Array formulas perform multiple calculations at once and return either a

single result or multiple values across a range of cells. They are particularly
useful for operations that involve multiple conditions or when you are doing
calculations in large datasets.
Here is an example where we are doing the sum of squared values in a
range: =SUM(A1:A5^2). This might be useful if you are thinking about
something like regression in Excel. You can see that this is a formula
because it begins with the equal sign and performs a calculation, but it's
also more than just the earlier SUM() function example because of the
caret.

Formula-based conditional formatting

Excel allows users to apply conditional formatting using custom

formulas rather than predefined rules. For example, a formula that applies
formatting based on row-specific conditions across multiple columns
wouldn't work as a regular cell formula but works correctly within
conditional formatting.
Here is an example where we highlight an entire row if a cell meets a
condition. For this example, we imagine a table where column C contains
order statuses ("Pending" or "Shipped"), and we want to highlight entire
rows where the status is "Pending." Here are the steps.
1. Select the entire range of your table (e.g., A2:E100).
2. Go to Home > Conditional Formatting > New Rule.
3. Select Use a formula to determine which cells to format.
4. Enter this formula: =$C2="Pending"
5. Click Format, choose a fill color, and press OK.
This formula looks similar to something you can put in a single cell of your
workbook. However, this formula is applied relative to each row but works
across the entire selected range. So, in a cell, =$C2="Pending" would just
return TRUE or FALSE, but in conditional formatting, Excel applies formatting
to entire rows dynamically based on our logic.