Microsoft Office 2010 In Depth

13. Getting the Most from Formulas and Functions

Excel’s real power lies in its ability to do calculations. The whole point of entering values into Excel is to have these values acted on by formulas or functions; you are after what results from calculations, meaning answers. Whether you are a biologist using statistical functions to enumerate a population study of snowy egrets in the Hudson River valley or are a financial maven tracking your investments, Excel provides you with the all the tools that you need to do the math.

In this chapter, we look at the basics of building simple formulas and taking advantage of Excel’s huge library of built-in formulas—functions—to do calculations. We explore a number of different function categories including ...