- Spreadsheets have many mathematical functions built into them. The most basic operations are the standard multiplication (*), division (/), addition (+), and subtraction (-). There is an order of operations when you are evaluating a formula. Formulas are evaluated from left to right. Expressions enclosed in parentheses are evaluated first followed by exponents, multiplication and division (same level), and addition and subtraction (same level). MS Excel has many more operators and mathematical operations may also be performed using “functions” (e.g., the “SUM” function). A brief description of the latter and relevantcommon functions for summarizing data can be found here. Advanced MS Excel functions on correlation and regression analysis are also available.
- Selecting cells is a very important concept of a spreadsheet. We need to know how to reference the data in other parts of the spreadsheet. When entering your selection you may use the keyboard or the mouse. We can select several cells together by specifying a starting and a stopping cell. This will select “all” the cells within this specified block of cells.
- Depending on the task you want to perform in MS Excel, you can use either relative cell references (which are references to cells relative to the position of the formula) or absolute references (which are cell references that always refer to cells in a specific location). If a dollar sign precedes the letter and/or number, such as $A$1, the column and/or row reference is absolute. Relative references automatically adjust when you copy the cells while absolute references do not.
Some of the basic functions of MS Excel 2010 will be demonstrated in this section.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.