1.9 Using Formulas

A formula is an expression that generates a numerical value in a cell (like a calculator), usually based on values in other cells. Formulas usually involve standard arithmetic operations. Excel uses + for addition, - (hyphen) for subtraction, * for multiplication, / for division, and ^ (carat) for exponentiation (raising to a power). For instance, if we want to divide the contents of Cell A2 by the contents of Cell B2 and place the results in Cell C2, we do the following:

  1. Make Cell C2 the active cell.
  2. Click in the formula bar and type =A2/B2.
  3. Press Enter.

Cell C2 will be the quotient of the values in Cells A2 and B2. If for a whole series of rows, we wanted to divide the entry in Column A by the entry in Column B and put the results in Column C, we could repeat the above process over and over. However, the typing would be tedious. We can accomplish the same thing more easily by replicating the formula in one cell in other cells.

1.9.1 Practice 5

  1. Enter =A2/B2 in Cell C2 as described above.
  2. Move the cursor to the lower right corner of Cell C2. The cursor should change shape to a small black cross (+). Hold down the left mouse button and drag the + down until all the cells in Column C where you want the calculation done are highlighted.
  3. Release the mouse button (you may need to press Enter right after, depending on how your Excel program is configured). The cell entries in Column C should equal the quotients of the same-row entries in Columns A and B.