Chapter 19

Ten-Plus Functions for Crunching Numbers

In This Chapter

arrow Tabulating data with functions

arrow Using functions to clean up data

arrow Comparing values with functions

arrow Calculating loan payments with the PMT function

arrow Measuring time with functions

Excel offers more than four hundred different functions. I choose what I consider the most useful and most interesting functions for this chapter.

If you’re not familiar with functions, check out Chapter 11. It explains how functions work, what function arguments are, how to enter arguments with functions, and how to include functions in formulas.

AVERAGE for Averaging Data

Might as well start with an easy one. The AVERAGE function averages the values in a cell range. In Figure 19-1, for example, AVERAGE is used to compute the average rainfall in a three-month period in three different counties.

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Figure 19-1: Using AVERAGE to find average ...

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