Functions - Inbuilt formulas to save you time

Excel provides a wide variety of functions that perform many different types of calculations.

They are built in formulas designed to save you time.

There are over 100 functions available covering the following categories

• Database & List Management
• Date & Time
• Engineering
• Financial
• Logical
• Lookup & Reference
• Math & Trigonometry
• Statistical
• Text

Each category contains many functions but they all have the same general format:

An equals sign, a function name and one or more arguments in brackets separated by commas.

=Name(arg,arg,arg)

For example, if we place the following function in cell A1

=Sum(a4,c3:d7,7)

The example totals the

• value in cell A4 together with
• the value of all the cells in the range C3:D7 and
• the number 7

and displays the result in A1.

Some of the more advanced functions, such as the logical functions, can provide your spreadsheet with decision making ability.

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