Understanding Mathematical Functions

Most of the work you do in Excel will probably involve at least a few mathematical functions. The most popular among these is the SUM function, but Excel is capable of calculating just about anything. In the next sections, we’ll discuss some of the most used (and most useful) mathematical functions in Excel.

Using the SUM Function

The SUM function totals a series of numbers. It takes the form =SUM(number1, number2, . . .). The number arguments are a series of as many as 30 entries that can be numbers, formulas, ranges, or cell references that result in numbers. SUM ignores arguments that refer to text values, logical values, or blank cells.

Note

You can create powerful conditional SUM formulas using add-in tools. ...

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