Skip to Content
Excel at 40
book

Excel at 40

by MrExcel's Holy Macro! Books, Bill Jelen
November 2025
Intermediate to advanced
207 pages
6h 14m
English
Packt Publishing
Content preview from Excel at 40
  1. LET: Defining & Reusing Variables in a Formula

Frequently, I am asked to solve a problem that requires a tricky formula. I often start by building the solution in multiple columns, solving one piece of the problem at a time. After I have the multiple sub-formulas working, I put it all back into one monster formula. Often during this process, I find that one or more subformulas are used repeatedly in later subformulas.

Imagine if the formula in D2 is referenced in E2, F2, and G2. When you are combining the formulas into one, you end up pasting the D2 formula into the monster formula three times.

This is exactly the kind of problem that is helped by the LET function.

Say that you have a long column of names that are badly formatted. There are ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Excel Insights

Excel Insights

MrExcel's Holy Macro! Books, 24 Excel MVPs
Excel Cookbook

Excel Cookbook

Dawn Griffiths
Microsoft Excel 365 Bible

Microsoft Excel 365 Bible

Michael Alexander, Dick Kusleika

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781806695416