Excel formulas
excel
beginner
Excel for beginners
This session is part of our Excel for beginners course. That’s a series of six linked sessions, delivered on Teams, that give an introduction to Excel for people working in health and social care. The sessions are:
- Excel first steps
- Tidy data in Excel
- References and names in Excel
- Excel formatting
- Excel tables
- Excel formulas (this session)
Together, they aim to help you develop an appropriate set of Excel skills to help your work. This session covers formulas in Excel:
- for this session, you’ll need to be familiar with the Excel basics (getting around in Excel, opening/saving/closing files)
- you’ll also need to be familiar with A1 referencing, values, and tables
- we’re going to avoid talking about formatting as much as possible today
- you might find the list of Excel shortcuts helpful too
Previous attendees have said…
- 21 previous attendees have left feedback
- 100% would recommend this session to a colleague
- 100% said that this session was pitched correctly
Three random comments from previous attendees
- These are just brilliant, a version of which I write at the end of every session. Go to them, just go. If you’re not sure whether to go. Just go.
- Basic beginner level - you could probably go on this same course a few times to try and get the basics, building on your knowledge each time. You may pick up different things each session so I’ll try and attend again the next time this course is run.
- Was well done and think its important to provide training for excel as it probably the most under utilised software in our field.
Session materials
- all materials
- slides
html / pdf - sample file
.xlsx
Session outline
- values and formulas
- simple functions
- references in formulas
Values and formulas
- cells in Excel contain either values, or formulas
- we’ll start with some data derived from NRS 2022 population estimates
- make sure you have the sample data available
Values
- when you enter some data in a cell, we call that a value
- values look the same in their cell as in the formula bar
Formulas
- we can also make a value using a formula
- Excel evaluates/calculates the formula, then displays the result as a value
- in an empty cell, try entering
= 2 + 2
Example formulas
- we can do ordinary arithmetic in formulas
/
,*
,-
,+
… - you can also try
&
which joins values= "This number is " & 5
Functions
- But most formulas use functions, which are like the verbs of Excel
- Try
= SUM(2, 2)
Adding functions
- you can type functions in by name (as above)
- you can also add from the
Formulas
area of the ribbon - or you can use the \(fx\) button by the formula bar
Function arguments
- adding a function by \(fx\) or the menu brings up the Function Arguments interface
- This is a helpful builder for more complicated functions
What are arguments?
-
arguments are the values we supply to a function
- in
=SUM(2,3)
, the arguments are2
and3
- in
- we separate arguments with a comma
,
- we need to be sure we’re supplying the right arguments in the right order (this gets described as the syntax of a function)
- we also, while we’re on the jargon, say that functions return a value so
= SUM(4,3)
will return7
Useful simple functions
- in the same way as
=SUM()
, you can try:AVERAGE
-
MIN
andMAX
SUBSTITUTE
CEILING
TODAY
ROUND
References in formulas
- mostly, you won’t add values directly into your formulas
- instead, you’ll bring them in from another part of your spreadsheet
- can you use
SUM()
to make a totalMale
+Female
column in the supplied data?- add a header in cell
G2
- if needed, extend the table to include your new column
- in
G3
, enter the formula= SUM(C3, D3)
- then copy down the rows by double-clicking the green fill handle
- add a header in cell
Practice
- calculate what proportion of your total population is under 16 (thanks, Lara Paterson (NHS Lanarkshire))
- estimate the population density
- find an average area for each council area
Troubleshooting functions
-
#NAME?
= “I don’t recognise that function name” -
#VALUE!
= “Your syntax has gone wrong - usually in the wrong order” -
#REF!
= “I don’t recognise that reference” -
#DIV/0!
= “You’ve divided by zero”