Chapter 1

Tapping Into Formula and Function Fundamentals

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Getting the skinny on the Excel basics

Bullet Writing formulas

Bullet Working with functions in formulas

Excel is to computer programs what a Ferrari is to cars: sleek on the outside and a lot of power under the hood. Excel is also like a truck. It can handle all your data — lots of it. In fact, in Excel, a single worksheet has 17,179,869,184 places to hold data. Yes, that’s what I said — more than 17 billion data placeholders. And that’s on just one worksheet!

Tip The number of available rows and columns may be fewer depending on how much memory your computer has.

Excel is used in all types of businesses. And you know how that’s possible? By being able to store and work with any kind of data. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in finance or sales, whether you run an online e-commerce store or organize wilderness trips, or whether you’re charting party RSVPs or tracking the scores of your favorite sports teams — Excel can handle all of it. Its number-crunching ability is just awesome! And so easy to use!

Just putting a bunch of ...

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