In: Categories » » Microsoft office » Creating a Formula and printing in Excel 2007
When you finish defining how to print your spreadsheet, you can either print right away or view a Print Preview of your spreadsheet just to make sure everything’s going to print correctly. To print a spreadsheet right away, click the Office Button, click the rightpointing arrow that appears to the right of Print, and then choose Quick Print. To display the Print Preview before printing, follow these steps:
1. Click the Office Button and then choose Print. The Print dialog box appears.
2. Click the Preview button.
The Print Preview window appears. If you click the Show Margins icon, the Print Preview window displays your page margins as dotted lines, which you can drag to move and redefine new page margins before printing.
3. Click Close Print Preview (to close the Print Preview window) or Print (to close the Print Preview window and print your spreadsheet).
Playing with Formulas Excel can manipulate your data by using formulas. Formulas can be as simple as adding two or more numbers together or as complicated as determining the calculation of a second-order differential equation. Formulas use data, stored in other cells, to calculate a new result that appears in another cell. To create even more complicated spreadsheets, you can even make a formula use data from other formulas so that changes in a single cell can ripple throughout an entire spreadsheet.
Creating a Formula
Formulas consist of three crucial bits of information:
An equal sign (=) One or more cell references The type of calculation to do on the data (addition, subtraction, and so on)
A cell reference is simply the unique row and column heading that identifies a single cell, such as A4 or D9. The four common calculations that a formula can use are addition (+), subtraction (–), multiplication (*), and division (/). A simple formula uses a single mathematical operator and two cell references such as:
=A4+C7
This formula consists of three parts: The = sign: This identifies your formula. If you type just A4+C7 into a cell, Excel treats it as ordinary text. Two cell references: In this example, A4 and C7. The addition (+) mathematical operator. To type a formula in a cell, follow these steps:
1. Click in the cell where you want to store the formula. You can also select a cell by pressing the arrow keys. Excel highlights your selected cell.
2. Type the equal sign (=). This tells Excel that you are creating a formula.
3. Type your formula that includes one or more cell references that
identify cells that contain data, such as A4 or E8. For example, if you want to add the numbers stored in cells A4 and E8, you would type =A4+E8.
4. Press Enter.
Typing cell references can get cumbersome because you have to match the row and column headings of a cell correctly. As a faster alternative, you can use the mouse to click any cell that contains data; then Excel types that cell reference into your formula automatically. To use the mouse to click cell references when creating a formula, follow these steps:
1. Click in the cell where you want to store the formula. (You can also select the cell by pressing the arrow keys.)
Excel highlights your selected cell.
2. Type the equal sign (=).
This tells Excel that anything you type after the equal sign is part of your formula.
3. Type any mathematical operators and click any cells that contain data, such as A4 or E8.
If you want to create the formula =A4+E8, you would do the following:
a. Type =. This tells Excel that you’re creating a formula.
b. Click cell A4. Excel types the A4 cell reference in your formula automatically.
c. Type +.
d. Click cell E8. Excel types in the E8 cell reference in your formula automatically.
4. Press Enter. After you finish creating a formula, you can type data into the cell references used in your formula to calculate a new result.
Organizing formulas with parentheses
Formulas can be as simple as a single mathematical operator such as =D3*E4. However, you can also use multiple mathematical operators, such as =A4+A5*C7/F4+D9 There are two problems with using multiple mathematical operators. First, they make a formula harder to read and understand. Second, Excel calculates mathematical operators from left to right, based on precedence, which means a formula may calculate results differently than you intended. Precedence tells Excel which mathematical operators to calculate first. For example, Excel calculates multiplication before it calculates addition. If you had a formula like =A3+A4*B4+B5 Excel first multiplies A4*B4 and then adds this result to A3 and B5. Typing parentheses around cell references and mathematical operators not only organizes your formulas but also tells Excel specifically how you want to calculate a formula. In the example =A3+A4*B4+B5, Excel multiplies A4 and B4 first. If you want Excel to first add A3 and A4, then add B4 and B5, and finally multiply the two results together, you have to use parentheses, like this: =(A3+A4)*(B4+B5)
Copying formulas
In many spreadsheets, you may need to create similar formulas that use different data. For example, you may have a spreadsheet that needs to add the same number of cells in adjacent columns. You could type nearly identical formulas in multiple cells, but that’s tedious and error-prone. For a faster way, you can copy a formula and paste it in another cell; then Excel automatically changes the cell references. You can see that cell B9 contains the formula =B3+B4+B5+ B6+B7+B8, which simply adds the numbers stored in the six cells directly above the cell that contains the formula (B9). If you copy this formula to another cell, that new formula will also add the six cells directly above it. Copy and paste this formula to cell C9, and Excel changes the formula to =C3+C4+C5+C6+C7+C8. To copy and paste a formula so that each formula changes cell references automatically, follow these steps:
1. Select the cell that contains the formula you want to copy.
2. Press Ctrl+C (or click the Copy icon under the Home tab). Excel displays a dotted line around your selected cell.
3. Select the cell (or cells) where you want to paste your formula. If you select multiple cells, Excel pastes a copy of your formula in each of those cells.
4. Press Ctrl+V (or click the Paste icon under the Home tab). Excel pastes your formula and automatically changes the cell references.
5. Press Esc or double-click away from the cell with the dotted line to make the dotted line go away.
Using Functions
Creating simple formulas is easy, but creating complex formulas is hard. To make complex formulas easier to create, Excel comes with prebuilt formulas called functions. Excel literally provides hundreds of functions that you can use by themselves or as part of your own formulas. A function typically uses one or more cell references:
Single cell references, such as =ROUND(C4,2), which rounds the number found in cell C4 to two decimal places
Contiguous (adjacent) cell ranges, such as =SUM(A4:A9), which adds all the numbers found in cells A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, and A9
Noncontiguous cell ranges, such as =SUM(A4,B7,C11), which adds all the numbers found in cells A4, B7, and C11
To use a function, follow these steps:
1. Click in the cell where you want to create a formula using a function.
2. Click the Formulas tab.
3. Click one of the following function icons in the Function Library group:
• Financial: Calculates business-related equations, such as the amount of interest earned over a specified time period
• Logical: Provides logical operators to manipulate True and False (also known as Boolean) values
• Text: Searches and manipulates text
• Date & Time: Provides date and time information
• Lookup & Reference: Provides information about cells, such as their row headings
• Math & Trig: Offers mathematical equations
• More Functions: Provides access to statistical and engineering functions
4. Click a function category, such as Financial or Math & Trig.
5. Click a function.
6. Click the cell references you want to use.
7. Repeat Step 6 as many times as necessary.
8. Click OK.
Excel displays the calculation of your function in the cell you selected in Step 1.
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