Important Excel Functions for Beginners: Every professional should know.

 

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 Important Excel Functions for Beginners: Every professional should know.

The very useful and the basic thing which can make your resume impressive that every organization is searching for is the knowledge of Excel.

Introduction:

Microsoft excel is a widely used spreadsheet program used to store data in tabular format. A table is grid of rows and columns, the intersection points of rows and columns is called cell.

MS Excel can be used anywhere for any kind of work. For Example, billing, data storage, data analysis, complex calculations, inventory management etc. It is a powerful tool which provides lot of features such as calculations, data filtering and sorting, built in formulae, conditional formatting, security etc.

We can do mathematical calculations, store data in the form of graphs and charts with the help of Excel. It is being used for so many years, every year its version gets updated. It can be used with mobile phones as well.

There are two ways of performing calculation in Excel: Formula and Functions.

Functions are the predefined formulas that are used to perform the calculations using the specific data values in proper order.

The most important and frequently used functions in excel are as follows:

1. SUM

2. AVERAGE

3. COUNT

4. MAX

5. MIN

When we have to deal with the addition of large amount of data For Ex. Calculating the total marks of students for all subjects, calculating the total amount of all items while billing, calculating the total stock available in inventory all such additions become very easy with the SUM function of excel.

Let us discuss how to use sum function.

1. SUM:

Sum is the basic inbuilt function provided by Excel which is used to aggregate the selected values / cell references /range of data which is in numerical format. We can add up to 255 arguments using sum function.

Syntax:

=SUM (number1, [number2], …)

Following are the steps to calculate the sum of columns/rows:

1. Select the cell where you want to calculate the sum

2. Type = symbol and then type SUM, a drop-down will be displayed on the screen showing the list of all functions.

3. Select the sum function from the drop-down list, then select the range of cells for which you want to calculate the sum. (Refer the screenshot).

4. Lastly press the enter key. You will be able to see the sum of the selected cells.

There is another way to open SUM function in excel, i.e. from the formulas tab .You can click on the Math and Trig function under the Formulas tab and then SUM function.

 The sum can also be calculated with the AutoSum feature of excel. This is the fastest way to calculate sum.

For better understanding click on the video Link: https://youtu.be/MjzqEQdClss 

We will discuss the next excel function in the next blog……..