11 basic Excel formulas to not get lost if you start using the Microsoft spreadsheet

Excel is one of the basic applications in office automation. A powerful spreadsheet that is part of Microsoft Office Widely used for office tasks and basic accounting Many are somewhat afraid of Office, an application that requires a learning process based on formulas that, we cannot deny, takes time.

The problem is not knowing the necessary formulas and that is what we are going to try to see here. Some of the basic formulas to access Excel without fear and thus lose fear when preparing a spreadsheet.

Addition

It's ABC and Excel. The basic formula everyone should know when dealing with the Microsoft spreadsheet. A formula that allows us to add the values ​​of a group of cells, or even entire rows and columns. It offers the advantage of supporting both separate cells and intervals. A formula whose example might be =SUM(A1:A30)

Subtraction

The same as before. Another basic one but now used to subtract the values of two cells. This could be the example to use, in which the value of one box is subtracted from that of another: =A2 - A3.

Multiplication

Is the formula used to multiply the values ​​of two or more cells. The cells whose values ​​we want to use are marked and between them as a multiplication symbol, an asterisk. This could be an example: =A1A3A5

Division

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The same as above, but now to divide we will use the symbol / between the cells whose values ​​we want to use. This could be an example: =A2 / C2."

Average, mean, or arithmetic mean

We move forward a bit and arrive at the average formula. The function of this formula is to return the arithmetic average value of the values ​​stored in the selected cells. The formula might look like this.=AVERAGE(A2:B2).

Maximum and minimum values

It is the formula used to find the maximum and minimum values that appear in a set of cells. To calculate them we will use the terms MAX and MIN together with the cells to analyze. This is an example for maximums =MIN(A2, B4, C3, 29) and another for minimums =MIN(A2, B4, C3, 29)

Countara

Count is one of the formulas for counting values A formula that allows counting values ​​even though they are not numbers and just ignores the empty cells.It is usually used to know how many entries a table has, if we do not care that they are alphanumeric values. If we only want to take numbers into account, the COUNT formula is used. An example might be =COUNTA(B2:B13)

Count Yes

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This formula allows to count elements that meet a certain criteria Criteria that can be based on the correspondence with a number, on the appearance of a certain text. Excel will count the cells that offer a condition that we have marked. An example would be to count cells with the value 455 =COUNTIF(B2:B13;455)"

Condition

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To some extent similar to the previous one. It is a formula based on the fulfillment of a conditionA value is returned if the condition we set is met. The classic example used is that of grades, where pass is if there is a value equal to or greater than 5 and fail is where that value is less than 5. The example could be: =SI(B2=500, Pass;Fail)"

Search V

Search for a value within a row and return the found value or an error if not found. An example could be =VLOOKUP(“Jose”, B1:D6, 3, FALSE) if we want to know the number of beers served by Jose in the month of February .

The use of “FALSE” is due to the fact that it is the necessary value to indicate that we want an exact search, that is, we only want the value for the entry with index Jose.

Search H

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Similar to the previous one, this formula seeks to search for a certain data in the first column of a table or matrix and once located the row in which said data is located, return the value that the column that we specify has in that same row. This example =VLOOKUP(May;A1:D13;2;FALSE) would be used to find out how many drinks Jose served in a month."