Maestro

Excel Functions

Excel provides a library of functions for performing commonly needed calculations. A function can be thought of as a prewritten formula ready for you to drop into your own formula. Each function takes the following form:...

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Formulas in Excel (2)

When do you need to use parentheses? It depends on the operators used in the formula. Operations are, by default, performed in this order: Exponentiation (^) first Multiplication (*) and division (/) next Addition (+) and subtraction (–) last...

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Formulas in Excel

Much of Excel’s power comes from its ability to perform calculations on data in the worksheet. The first character of a formula is always an equal sign. This tells Excel that the cell entry is a formula and not text or a number. Then the formula is written as described here, using the standard elements:...

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Formatting the Worksheet (2)

You can see this dialog box has several tabs, each corresponding to one aspect of formatting. The tabs are Number— Controls the display of numbers but has no effect on cells that contain text Alignment— Enables you to set the vertical and horizontal alignment of cell data and the angle at which it is displayed...

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Formatting the Worksheet

Excel offers you great flexibility in changing the appearance of your worksheets. Formatting might seem like an optional extra, but it can help to make a worksheet easier to use. In the templates, for example, I have used three different background colors to indicate worksheet cells that have different roles in the template, which helps you avoid errors and confusion. Figure 2.3 shows an example of a...