Chapter 4. Performing Calculations on Data

4. Performing Calculations on Data

Chapter at a Glance

In this chapter, you will learn to:
	Name groups of data.
	Create formulas to calculate values.
	Summarize data that meets specific conditions.
	Find and correct errors in calculations.

Microsoft® Office Excel® 2007 workbooks give you a handy place to store and organize your data, but you can also do a lot more with your data in Office Excel 2007. One important task you can perform is to calculate totals for the values in a series of related cells. You can also use Excel 2007 to find out other information about the data you select, such as the maximum or minimum value in a group of cells. By finding the maximum or minimum value in a group, you can identify your best salesperson, product categories you might need to pay more attention to, or suppliers that consistently give you the best deal. Regardless of your bookkeeping needs, Excel 2007 gives you the ability to find the information you want. And if you should make an error, you can find the cause and correct it quickly.

Many times you can't access the information you want without referencing more than one cell, and it's also often true that you'll use the data in the same group of cells for more than one calculation. Excel 2007 makes it easy to reference a number of cells at once, enabling you to define your calculations quickly.

In this chapter, you'll learn how to streamline references to groups of data on your worksheets and how to create and correct formulas that summarize Consolidated Messenger's business operations.

See Also

Do you need only a quick refresher on the topics in this chapter? See the Quick Reference entries on pages xxviilxiii.

Important

Before you can use the practice sites provided for this chapter, you need to install them from the book's companion CD to their default location. See "Using the Book's CD" on page xiii for more information.