Blonde Tutorials: A Little Extra Help for the Blonde in Everyone!

Formulas with AutoSum:
Excel 2003 has made using formulas easier than ever! Just type in your data and click AutoSum.
The great thing about formulas is that once you have them in, you don't have to worry about changing your totals if your other data changes -- the formulas will recalculate automatically!

The AutoSum icon is on the Standard Toolbar.
Click in the cell where you want your formula to go, then click the little down arrow on AutoSum and choose the calculation you need.

If you need a more advanced formula, you can choose "More Functions".

Common Formulas:
Here are some of the more common formulas.
Notice that all formulas begin with an equal sign (=).

Addition:

There are 2 ways to write a formula for addition.

You can use SUM (which is on AutoSum). The cells that are part of the calculation go in parethesis. The formula =SUM(A1:A5) tells Excel to add all numbers in cells A1 through A5.
If you wanted to add only certain cells in the list, you would use a comma instead of a colon. The formula =SUM(A1,A5) tells Excel to add only the numbers in cells A1 and A5.

The long way to add is to use the plus sign (+).

Subtraction:

Since subtraction is just the addition of negative numbers, you can use SUM.

You can also just use the minus sign (-)

Multiplication:

Multiplication works the same way as addtion.

Product is not on the AutoSum menu. To get the Product function, you'll need to go to AutoSum and choose "More Functions".
On the Insert Function window, choose or type in "product" and click OK.

You can also multiply using an asterisk (*).

Division:

To divide, simply use the forward slash (/).

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