Chapter 6: Performing Calculations on Data

Overview

In this chapter you will learn to:

• Name groups of cells .

• Create formulas to calculate values.

• Find and correct errors in calculations.

Microsoft Excel workbooks give you a handy place to store and organize your data, but you can also do a lot more with your data in Excel. One important task you can perform in Excel is to calculate totals for the values in a series of related cells. You can also use Excel to find out other information about the data you select, such as the maximum or minimum value in a group of cells. Finding the maximum or minimum value in a group can let you 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 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 makes it easy to reference a number of cells at once, letting you define your calculations quickly.

In this chapter, you ll learn how to streamline references to groups of data in your worksheets and how to create and correct formulas that summarize the sales and product data from The Garden Company.

See Also  

Do you need only a quick refresher on the topics in this chapter? See the quickreference entries on pages xxxiii.

Important  

 On the CD    Before you can use the practice files in this chapter, you need to install them from the book s companion CD to their default location. See Using the Book s CD-ROM on page xxi for more information.