by Ken Bluttman and Peter Aitken Microsoft ® Office Excel ® 2007 Formulas & Functions FOR DUMmIES ‰ 01_046555 ffirs.qxp 12/26/06 7:52 PM Page i 01_046555 ffirs.qxp 12/26/06 7:52 PM Page iv by Ken Bluttman and Peter Aitken Microsoft ® Office Excel ® 2007 Formulas & Functions FOR DUMmIES ‰ 01_046555 ffirs.qxp 12/26/06 7:52 PM Page i Microsoft Office ® Excel ® 2007 Formulas and Functions For Dummies ® Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 111 River Street Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2007 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as per- mitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. 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Library of Congress Control Number: 2006939512 ISBN: 978-0-470-04655-5 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 01_046555 ffirs.qxp 12/26/06 7:52 PM Page ii About the Authors Ken Bluttman has been working as a software developer for nearly two decades. Ken specializes in VB.Net/VBA/database/web applications. He has written several articles on various computer topics including Office/VBA development, XML, SQL Server, and InfoPath. He has a number of books out on Excel and Access. Ken lives in New York with his wife, son, dog, hamster, some frogs, and a couple of geckos. Peter Aitken has been writing about computers and programming for over 15 years. He has more than 45 books to his credit with over 1.5 million copies in print, and also has extensive experience writing software documentation, online help, and magazine and trade-publication articles. Some recent book titles are Managing Your Money and Investment with Excel, Powering Office XP with XML, Excel PivotTables and Charts, and Visual Basic.NET Programming with Peter Aitken. He is the proprietor of PGA Consulting, providing custom application development and technical writing services since 1994. 01_046555 ffirs.qxp 12/26/06 7:52 PM Page iii 01_046555 ffirs.qxp 12/26/06 7:52 PM Page iv Dedications Dedicated to all the Excel users in the world! Keep up the good work. Also, I wish to put a special note here for my dog, Chestnut, who kept me company when writing in the wee hours of the morning. –– Ken Bluttman To my wife Maxine, for her unflagging support and devotion. –– Peter Aitken Authors’ Acknowledgments Much activity goes on behind the scenes in bringing a book from idea to reality. Many people are involved. We wish to thank the great Wiley staff — Tom Heine, Courtney Allen, Tonya Cupp, and everyone else on the Wiley team — for all their hard work! A special thanks to Doug Klippert for handling the technical review of the book. He is one sharp Excel guy! –– Peter G. Aitken and Ken Bluttman Thanks to co-author Peter Aitken for his contributions, insights, and sugges- tions. Special thanks to my family for understanding that, at times, sitting in front of a computer is a priority, even when it means I have to miss some- thing special. But darn I did miss watching some fun movies (sigh). –– Ken Bluttman 01_046555 ffirs.qxp 12/26/06 7:52 PM Page v Publisher’s Acknowledgments We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/. Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following: Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development Project Editor: Tonya Maddox Cupp (Previous Edition: Jade L. Williams) Acquisitions Editors: Tom Heine, Courtney Allen Technical Editor: Doug Klippert Editorial Manager: Robyn Siesky Business Manager: Amy Knies Media Development Specialists: Angela Denny, Kate Jenkins, Steven Kudirka, Kit Malone Media Project Supervisor: Laura Moss Media Development Manager: Laura VanWinkle Editorial Assistant: Laura Sinise Sr. Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case Cartoons: Rich Tennant ( www.the5thwave.com) Composition Services Project Coordinator: Erin Smith Layout and Graphics: Karl Brandt, Barbara Moore, Laura Pence, Alicia B. South, Julie Trippetti Proofreaders: John Greenough, Techbooks Indexer: Techbooks Anniversary Logo Design: Richard Pacifico Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director Publishing for Consumer Dummies Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director Composition Services Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services 01_046555 ffirs.qxp 12/26/06 7:52 PM Page vi Contents at a Glance Introduction 1 Part I: Putting the Fun in Functions 5 Chapter 1: Tapping into Formula and Function Fundamentals 7 Chapter 2: Saving Time with Function Tools 37 Chapter 3: Saying “Array!” for Formulas and Functions 53 Chapter 4: Fixing Formula Boo-Boos 63 Part II: Counting on Your Money 79 Chapter 5: Calculating Loan Payments and Interest Rates 81 Chapter 6: Appreciating What You’ll Get, Depreciating What You Got 97 Chapter 7: Using Basic Math Functions 113 Chapter 8: Advancing Your Math 131 Chapter 9: Throwing Statistics a Curve 149 Chapter 10: Using Significance Tests 185 Part III: Doing the Math 195 Chapter 11: Rolling the Dice on Predictions and Probability 197 Chapter 12: Dressing Up for Date Functions 215 Chapter 13: Keeping Well-Timed Functions 233 Chapter 14: Using Lookup, Logical, and Reference Functions 241 Chapter 15: Digging Up the Facts 269 Part IV: Working with Data 283 Chapter 16: Writing Home about Text Functions 285 Chapter 17: Playing Records with Database Functions 311 Part V: The Part of Tens 323 Chapter 18: Ten-Plus Tips for Working with Formulas 325 Chapter 19: Ten-Plus Functions You Really Should Know 339 Index 347 02_046555 ftoc.qxp 12/26/06 7:52 PM Page vii 02_046555 ftoc.qxp 12/26/06 7:52 PM Page viii [...]... 7:52 PM Page x Excel 2007 Formulas & Functions For Dummies Getting help in the Insert Function dialog box 48 Using the Function Arguments dialog box to edit functions 48 Directly Entering Formulas and Functions 49 Entering formulas and functions in the Formula Bar 49 Entering formulas and functions directly in worksheet cells 50 Chapter 3: Saying “Array!” for Formulas and Functions ... the excellent Excel 2007 For Dummies by Greg Harvey (Wiley) Other than that, this book is written for Excel 2007 but just between you and us — it works just fine with older versions of Excel There could be a function or two that isn’t in an older version or work slightly differently But Microsoft has done an excellent job of maintaining compatibility between versions of Excel, so when it comes to formulas. .. Introducing the Formulas Ribbon 11 Working with rows, column, cells, ranges, and tables 13 Formatting your data 18 Getting help 19 Gaining the Upper Hand on Formulas 19 Entering your first formula 20 Understanding references 23 Copying formulas with the fill handle 25 Assembling formulas the right way 25 Using Functions in Formulas ... make up the Formula Bar You use the Formula Bar quite a bit as you work with formulas and functions The Formula Box is used to enter and edits formulas The Formula Box is the long entry box that starts in the middle of the bar When you enter a formula into this box, you then can click the little check-mark button to finish the entry The check-mark button is only visible when you are entering a formula... Click the Microsoft Office button, found at the upper left of your Excel screen, to view the selections found under the File menu in earlier versions of Excel Figure 1-1 shows the new look for accessing basic functions such as opening, saving, printing, and closing your Excel files (not to mention a number of other nifty functions to boot!) Figure 1-1 : Seeing how to use basic Excel program functions. .. keeps Excel compatible with Lotus 1-2 -3 Look at some very basic formulas Table 1-1 shows a few formulas and tells you what they do We use the word return to refer to what displays after a formula or function does its thing So to say the formula returns a 7 is the same as saying the formula calculated the answer to be 7 Table 1-1 Basic Formulas Formula What It Does =2 + 2 Returns the number 4 =A1 + A2 Returns... one of the formatting options for currency Chapter 5 explains further about formatting currency Figure 1-1 2: Formatting data Besides selecting formatting on the Home Ribbon, you can use the familiar (in previous versions) Format Cells dialog box This is the place to go for all your formatting needs beyond what’s available on the toolbar You can even create custom formats You can display the Format Cells... specific, a formula in Excel calculates something, or returns some result based on data in the worksheet A formula is placed in cells and must start with an equal sign (=) to tell Excel that it is a formula and not data Sounds simple, and it is All formulas should start with an equal (=) sign An alternative is to start a formula with a plus sign (+) This keeps Excel compatible with Lotus 1-2 -3 Look at... Comparing, Finding, and Measuring Text 304 Going for perfection with EXACT 304 Finding and searching 305 xiii 02_046555 ftoc.qxp xiv 12/26/06 7:52 PM Page xiv Excel 2007 Formulas & Functions For Dummies Chapter 17: Playing Records with Database Functions 311 Putting Your Data into a Database Structure 311 Working with Database Functions 312 Establishing your database... tech-head types, but not to anyone else You can read these or ignore them as you see fit Where to Go from Here Roll up your sleeves, take a deep breath, and then forget all that preparing-fora-hard-task stuff Using Excel is easy You can hardly make a mistake without Excel catching it If you need to brush up on the basics, go to Chapter 1 This chapter is also the best place to get your first taste of formulas . Peter Aitken Microsoft ® Office Excel ® 2007 Formulas & Functions FOR DUMmIES ‰ 01_046555 ffirs.qxp 12/26/06 7:52 PM Page i Microsoft Office ® Excel ® 2007 Formulas and Functions For Dummies ® Published. Formulas and Functions 49 Entering formulas and functions in the Formula Bar 49 Entering formulas and functions directly in worksheet cells 50 Chapter 3: Saying “Array!” for Formulas and Functions. Page ix Excel 2007 Formulas & Functions For Dummies x Getting help in the Insert Function dialog box 48 Using the Function Arguments dialog box to edit functions 48 Directly Entering Formulas