Excel Function

The Top 15 Excel functions you NEED to know if you're an Excel user - Excel by Joe...
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The Top 15 Excel functions you NEED to

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Oct ober 12, 2014 by admin

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Excel funct ions can great ly enhance your abilit y t o perfor m t asks in day t o day
act ivit ies in Excel. While t he are hundreds of funct ions out t her e, I feel t here are
15 funct ions t hat all Excel users should know. Whet her you ar e an office worker,
or a small business owner using Excel t o keep t rack of your finances or just t he
casual user, t hese 15 funct ions can be very import ant t ime savers and enhance
your abilit y t o creat e bet t er performing spreadsheet s!
The Vlookup funct ion is one of t he most import ant funct ions out t here yet many
people do not know anyt hing about it . This funct ion will look for a piece of
infor mat ion in a large t able of dat a and pull in any field from t hat t able int o your
new t able. The best way t o see t his is t hrough an example.
Let us say we have 2 t ables. The fir st one is just a list of 3 names. The second is a
list of 25 names along wit h 3 t est scores t hey t ook. What we want t o do is pull t he
second t est score from t he large t able and put it int o t he small list of names.
http://excelbyjoe.com/the-top-20-excel-functions-you-need-to-know-if-youre-an-excel... 16/11/2014
The Top 15 Excel functions you NEED to know if you're an Excel user - Excel by Joe... Page 2 of 33
So first , we have t he list of t hree st udent s below.
We want t o use t he VLOOKUP funct ion t o pull in t he t est score from Subject 2
from t he larger t able below:
So inst ead of manually looking for t he name yourself in t his large t able, you can
use t he vlookup funct ion t o do it .
Go t o t he cellnext t o Mort y Seinfelds name in t he small t able and Insert a
funct ion or click t he Fx but t on.
Once you press t hat , you will need t o find t he vlookup funct ion. Eit her t ype it in
t he search at t he t op and press Go or find it in t he list at t he bot t om.
Once you click it , you will see t he Vlookup wizard pop up. This is where we can
st art t o ent er in our var iables.
Lookup_ value This is t he cell we are t rying t o find in t he large t able. In t his
example, we are looking up Mort y Seinfeld. We could physically t ype in Mort y
Seinfeld however, we want t o be able t o copy and past e t his t o t he rest of t he
t able, so we need t o make it a reference.
Table array This is t he range of t he large t able Tip 1 The left most column
needs t o cont ain t he field you are looking for. Tip 2 Hilight t he ent ire column. If
you just hilight a range, like A1:D50, t hen when you copy t he formula, t his range is
going t o change t oo.
Col_ index_ num This is t he column we want t o pull. In our large t able, name is
column 1. Subject is column 2. Subject 2 is column 3 and Subject 3 is column 4.
Range_ lookup This is eit her t rue or false. If you choose False, t hen Excel is
going t o look for an exact mat ch. In t his case, looks for Mort y Seinfeld. If it
doesnt find it , it ret urns an # N/ A. If you ent er True, t hen it will look for t he
mat ch but if it doesnt find it , it will ret urn what Excel considers t he closest . I
rarely ever use True.
So t he wizard is t he easiest way t o ent er in t he funct ion. However, you can also
just t ype it in if you want .
This will produce t he same result s.

Then once we press ent er and finish t he formula, Excel will pull in t he result s. you
can t hen copy and past e it down and get t he t est scores for all 3 people in t his
example.
The Sum funct ion is probably t he most widely used funct ion out t here so t his may
be one you already know. This funct ion will just Sum up a group of numbers.
Very simple.
Let s use our example above. Let
s say we want t o t ot al up t he 3 t est scores below.
We would put our cursor in t he cell we want t he t ot al t o appear. In t his example,

put t he cursor right below t he list of numbers. Then Insert t he Funct ion. One
nice t hing about t he sum funct ion is t hat t here is a short cut but t on on t he Home
t ab. It looks like:
Once you press it , Excel will look for numbers near t here and put a dot t ed box
around t he numbers t hat it t hinks t hat you want summed up.
If t he dot t ed box is around t he corr ect numbers, t hen just press ent er and you will
get your t ot al. But if it is not , t hen just hilight t he cells t hat you DO want summed.
Then press ent er around t he new numbers and get your result .
Somet imes Excel will pick t he wrong range of numbers or even include t he t it le in
t he list t o add up. So be sure t o double check all t he ranges befor e pressing ent er!
Then once you press ent er, you will get t his result :
MAX and MIN funct ions will simply ret urn t he largest and smallest result fr om a
range of numbers. Let s use our Test score example from above one more t ime.
We have t his list of t est scores and we need t o find t he highest and lowest score
for each Subject .
So first go t o t he cell next t o highest score in insert a funct ion. Go t o t he funct ion
MAX. This funct ion will ret ur n t he highest value.
All you need t o do is drag your cursor over t he cells t hat you want t o find t he max
value for. In t his example, it s cells B4 t o B24. That is Subject 1. What Excel will do
is look t hrough t hat range and pull in t he highest value. In t his example, it is 95.
You can also hilight mult iple ranges.
Now go t o cell B26 and insert a funct ion. Insert t he funct ion MIN. This will work
t he exact opposit e of MAX. You st ill will hilight t he full range of cells t hat you
want t o check, but t his funct ion will pull in t he lowest value.
The Top 15 Excel functions you NEED to know if you're an Excel user - Excel by J... Page 10 of 33
So now you have added in a MAX and MIN value for t his Subject . Now if you want
t o find t hat for Subject 2 and 3, just copy and past e t he for mula over and you will
get t he new result s.
The IF funct ion is used t o det ermine whet her a st at ement is True or False and
t hen performs an act ion based on t he r esult .The IF st at ement is broken out as
I F(Criteria,True value,False value)

You can see t his best by following an example
In t his example we have a t able of salesmen and t heir Forecast ed sales.We have a
column st at ing Is Forecast over 150k?
So we want t o make an if st at ement t o ask Are sales over 150k?.If so, t hen do an
act ion.If not , t hen do somet hing else.
So go t o cell G4 and insert t he IF funct ion.
St art t o fill in t he Wizard fields.

Logical_ test D4 > 150000 here we put a reference t o t he Forecast amount and
check if it is over 150000.In cell D4, t he value is exact ly 150000, but since it is not
over 150000, t hen t he result is false.As you can see above.
Value if true Here you ent er in what you want for t he result if it is t rue.You can
put any word or combinat ion of words.You can put an amount .Or you can even
put anot her for mula.
Value if false Same as above, just for t he false result .
Once you copy t his formula down, t hen it will t est all t he fields in column D
Forecast and give you t he result s.
The SUMIF funct ion will look for a cert ain crit eria and if it finds it , t hen it will Sum
up relat ed cells.
For example:
Here we have a t able of salesmen wit h forecast s and mont h of t heir forecast
close.On t he right we list ed t he mont hs and we want t o sum up t he Forecast s for
each mont h.So go t o t he first cell and insert t he SUMIF funct ion
Range This is group of cells t hat we want t o look in.In t his example, we want t o
find t he mont hs in t his column
Crit eria This is t he cell we are looking for.This example we use cell I4, which is
t he mont h in t he r ight hand t able.In t his example, it s January.
Sum range This is t he column we need t o look in t o pull in t he dollar amount .In
t his example it s t he Forecast column, which is column D.
Then aft er you copy it down, you will get t he result s like above.Then t his will
change as t he values in t he original t able change.
The COUNTIF funct ion works t he same way as t he SUMIF, however it just count s
t he fields t hat mat ch a cert ain crit eria, inst ead of summing t hem.See t he
following example.
We will use our same t able as last t ime.We just added a column t o t he t able on
t he right saying Count by Mont h
We will go t o cell K4 and insert t he COUNTIF funct ion.
Range t his is t he range of dat a t hat we want t o count .We will check for a
cert ain crit eria here.
Crit eria This is what we ar e looking for in t he Range.You can ent er somet hing
like June in t here.However we want t o make it a reference so we can copy it
down, so we will ent er I4, which is January
We don;t need anyt hing else since we are only count ing t he cells and not adding
up anyt hing.
So once we do t his, it will find 4 inst ances of January.You can double check by
count ing t hem yourself.Then just copy t his formula down and you will get t he
following t able.
The AND funct ion is a logical funct ion t hat checks mult iple crit eria and will ret urn
a TRUE value if ALL of t he crit eria ar e TRUE.Ot herwise it ret urns a false.
This t ype of st at ement usually get s linked inside an IF st at ement .Where t he IF
st at ement will perform cert ain act ions depending on if t he AND st at ement is True
or False.
Let s look at t his following t able.
We have t his t able which list s hours slept , Man/ Woman and last year s income.
Let s say we want t o find out in each person is a Man AND if t heir income is over
100k.Since we are r equir ing t wo fields t o be True, t hen we need t o use AND.
So let s fill in t his wizard.you can fill out many crit eria fields.The first one is t o
ask if t his is a man or woman.
So we want c3=man.We are checking t he man/ woman column and ret urning a
True if t hey are a man.In t his inst ance, C3 says woman.So you can see in t he
wizar d t hat it says FALSE.
Next , we want t o see if income is over 100k.So we ent er D3>100000.Column D is
t he annual income field so we check if it is over 100k.In t his inst ance, it is not , so
it ret urns a False.
Then overall, we need all crit eria t o be True in or der for t he AND st at ement t o be
t rue.Since it is not , it is FALSE.
Once we do t his, copy it t o all t he rows.
Above are t he final result s.I hilight ed t he True result s.you can see t hat column C
has Man and column D has income over 100k.
The OR funct ion works similar t o t he AND st at ement .It checks mult iple crit eria
however it only requires ONE st at ement t o be t rue t o make t he whole st at ement
TRUE.
So let s look at t he same example.
We are using t he same dat a, but now we are looking for EITHER 1. They sleep over
8 hours OR Their income is under 50k
Since we only are look for one of t hem t o be t rue, we can use t he OR funct ion.
Crit eria 1 is B3>8 here we are checking if t he hours of sleep is over 8.In t his case
it is 8, so t he result is False.It isnt OVER 8.
Crit eria 2D3 < 50000 Since income is 10000, it s result is TRUE.And since only
one st at ement needs t o be TRUE, t hen t he full st at ement is TRUE.
See t he final result s now and check for yourself.
The Left , right and concat enat e funct ions are great Text funct ions for
manipulat ing dat a in cells. You can t ake any numbers or words in a cell and pull in
t he left or right charact ers from t hem and put t hem in a new cell.
Conversely, you can combine cells int o a new cell.
Let s st art by looking at t he Left funct ion. Say we have t he following:
We have peoples phone numbers in a list . Now say we want t o have a column
wit h just t he area code. We can use t he left funct ion on t he phone number and
pull in t he 3 left most charact ers.
Insert t he funct ion in cell C3.
Text This is t he cell we are looking at and pulling t he info from. In t his case it is
t he first phone number, cell B3
Num_ chars how many charact ers from t he t ext do we want t o pull from t he
LEFT side.
Then copy t he cell down for it t o get t he area code on all t he phone numbers:
The RIGHT funct ion works t he same as t he left , but just pulls from t he right side.
Say we want t o pull in t he last 4 digit s on t he phone number. We can use t he
Right funct ion.
The Text is t he cell we are pulling t he informat ion from. And t he number of
charact ers is t he charact er s from t he right side. Once you copy it down, you will
see t he following:
CONCATENATE This funct ion will combine mult iple cells or words int o one cell.
Let
s say we now want t o combine t he area code wit h t he last 4 digit s int o one cell
and put t he word phone in front of it . This can be done wit h t his funct ion.
You just put eit her t he word or cell r eference in each t ext . For example, t he st art
of t he phrase is t he word phone . Since we want t he same word, we can just
t ype in t hat exact word.
Then for t he next t wo, we want t o just put a reference in t here so we can copy it
down. So just put C3 int o Text 2 and D3 int o Text 3.
Then t his will give you t he following aft er copying and past ing it down.
The round funct ion is used t o t ake an amount t hat has many decimals and round it
t o t he number of decimals t hat you want .It is bet t er t han format t ing t he cell
because if you formal t he cell 10.3678 t o decimals, it will show 10.37 however t he
act ual number in t he formula will st ill be 10.3678.However if you use t he Round
funct ion, it will t ur n t he number int o 10.37.
For example, we have t he following spreadsheet :
We need t o divide labor int o Tot al expenses in column D.If we just use t he
formula B2/ C2, we will get a long number aft er t he decimal.
Now we can format t he cell t o 2 decimals and it will display it correct ly.However
if you are doing furt her calculat ions using t hat amount , it could t hrow off t hose
numbers.
So inst ead, we want t o use t he Round funct ion inst ead.It looks like t his:
Here we used t he Round funct ion t o put t he original formula in t he Number field
and t he t he Num_ digit s is t he number of digit s aft er t he decimal place you want
t o show.
So we changed t he number in D2 t o .21.
The proper funct ion is a t ext funct ion t o capit alize each word.This will also make
t he rest of t he let t ers small.
For example, if we have t he following:
We want t o make each of t hese phases int o a pr oper looking st yle, which would be
t o have t he first let t er of each word capit alized and all t he rest of t he word small.
So we insert t he Proper funct ion:
Then when we copy it down, we will get :
The now funct ion is very easy.It is a simple funct ion t hat will just t ell you exact ly
what t ime and day it is.The you can format it as a dat e t o show t he dat e and t ime
or just t he dat e.
You can simple t ype Now() int o a cell or insert t he Now funct ion:
It will give t he following result :
Then you can format it as just a dat e if you like t o get t his:
So t hat is our list of t he t op 15 funct ions t hat every Excel user should know.They
can save you a lot of t ime in performing t asks and make you more efficient .There
are many many more funct ions besides t hese t hat can also be helpful ,so I
wouldnt st op here.However knowing t hese 15 can be enough for t he basic Excel
user t o st art wit h and t o be effect ive in Excel!
If you like t his art icle, check out t he following Excel product s:
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The Top 15 Excel functions you NEED to know if you're an Excel user - Excel by Joe...

Excel by Joe - Solutions to your Excel Problems

Excel Software Solutions

The Top 15 Excel functions you NEED to

Oct ober 12, 2014 by admin

So first , we have t he list of t hree st udent s below.

This will produce t he same result s.

We would put our cursor in t he cell we want t he t ot al t o appear. In t his example,

I F(Criteria,True value,False value)

St art t o fill in t he Wizard fields.

We will go t o cell K4 and insert t he COUNTIF funct ion.

Let s look at t his following t able.

So we changed t he number in D2 t o .21.

Then when we copy it down, we will get :

It will give t he following result :

Filed Under : Uncat egor ized

How t o change t he values on t he axis

How t o use t he MAX and LARGE

funct ions in Excel

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