PROFESSIONAL MINDWARE TM Unleash the Power of Excel Formulas Now revised to cover the new features of Excel 2002 and expanded with two all-new chapters on financial formulas, this one-of-a-kind reference delivers all the tips and techniques you need to maximize one of the most powerful spreadsheet tools: formulas. With clear explanations of operators, nesting, and functions plus hundreds of practical, real-world examples, spreadsheet expert John Walkenbach shares proven solutions for typical (and not-so-typical) Excel challenges. From working with dates to performing table lookups to creating array formulas, this in-depth guide will help you supercharge your spreadsheets — and make the most of Excel. Your Road Map to High-Performance Excel Formulas • Get a concise overview of Excel’s many features, including cell formatting, analysis tools, and protection options • Master basic formula facts — including absolute vs. relative references, operators, error values, naming techniques, and more • Get practical tips on using Excel’s worksheet functions in your formulas • Find expanded coverage of discounting, depreciation, and other financial formulas • Perform magic with powerful array formulas • Use your formulas to enhance charts and pivot tables • Debug formulas and take advantage of Excel’s auditing tools • Develop custom worksheet functions with VBA Excel 2002 Formulas $39.99 USA $59.99 CANADA £29.99 UK incl. VAT Excel 2002 Formulas Walkenbach Reader Level Intermediate to Advanced Shelving Category Excel/Spreadsheets Power Utility Pak trial and more on CD-ROM Visit us at mandtbooks.com CD-ROM included PROFESSIONAL MINDWARE TM • A trial version of the author’s award-winning Power Utility Pak 2000 • A demo of the author’s Sound-Proof 2000 • Example Excel workbooks from the book System Requirements Pentium PC with Windows 98 or greater; 32 MB RAM; Microsoft Excel 2002. See About the CD appendix for details and complete system requirements. BONUS CD-ROM INCLUDES Excel 2002 Formulas John Walkenbach Author of Excel 2002 Power Programming with VBA “Even if you already have a shelf full of Excel reference books, be sure to squeeze in a couple of inches for this one.” —Microsoft OfficePro magazine on the previous edition John Walkenbach is a principal of JWalk and Associates, Inc., a consulting firm that specializes in spreadsheet application development, and is the author of more than two dozen books, including, most recently, Excel 2002 Bible and Excel 2002 Power Programming with VBA. He maintains “The Spreadsheet Page,” a popular Web resource at www.j-walk.com/ss. ,!7IA7G4-feiaaa!:p;N;t;T;t ISBN 0-7645-4800-X *85555-AGBGFb www.mandtbooks.com 4800-X cover 8/16/01 10:52 AM Page 1 Excel 2002 Formulas 4800-x FM.F 8/27/01 11:54 AM Page i 4800-x FM.F 8/27/01 11:54 AM Page ii Excel 2002 Formulas John Walkenbach M&T Books An imprint of Hungry Minds, Inc. 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For authorization to photocopy items for corporate, personal, or educational use, please contact Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, or fax 978-750-4470. is a trademark of Hungry Minds, Inc. 4800-x FM.F 8/27/01 11:54 AM Page iv 4800-x FM.F 8/27/01 11:54 AM Page v About the Author John Walkenbach is a leading authority on spreadsheet software and principal of JWalk and Associates Inc., a Southern California–based consulting firm that spe- cializes in spreadsheet application development. John is the author of about 30 spreadsheet books, and has written more than 300 articles and reviews for a variety of publications, including PC World, InfoWorld, PC Magazine, Windows, and PC/Computing. He also maintains a popular Internet Web site (The Spreadsheet Page, www.j-walk.com/ss), and is the developer of the Power Utility Pak, an award-winning add-in for Microsoft Excel. John graduated from the University of Missouri and earned a Masters and PhD from the University of Montana. Credits ACQUISITIONS EDITOR Greg Croy PROJECT EDITOR Susan Christophersen TECHNICAL EDITOR Bill Manville COPY EDITORS Jennifer Mario, Rebekah Mancilla SENIOR PERMISSIONS EDITOR Carmen Krikorian EDITORIAL MANAGER Kyle Looper PROJECT COORDINATOR Nancee Reeves GRAPHICS AND PRODUCTION SPECIALISTS Sean Decker Jill Piscitelli Kendra Span Laurie Stevens Brian Torwelle Jeremey Unger Erin Zeltner QUALITY CONTROL TECHNICIANS Laura Albert Andy Hollandbeck Carl Pierce MEDIA DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST Greg Stephens MEDIA DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR Marisa Pearman PROOFREADING AND INDEXING TECHBOOKS Production Services 4800-x FM.F 8/27/01 11:54 AM Page vi Preface Thanks for buying my book. If you’re interested in developing killer formulas and taking Excel to a new level, this book is as good as it gets. I’m confident that you’ll agree that your money was invested wisely. Why I Wrote This Book I approached this project with one goal in mind: To write the ultimate Excel book that would appeal to a broad base of users. That’s a fairly ambitious goal. But based on the feedback I received from the first edition, I think I’ve accomplished it. I’ve been using Excel for nearly a decade and I spend a lot of time participating in the Excel newsgroups on the Internet. As a result, I’m very familiar with the types of questions that come up time and time again. Much of the material in this book was inspired by questions on the Excel newsgroups. This book provides the answers to those questions — along with answers to questions that probably never occurred to you! As you probably know, most bookstores offer dozens of Excel books. The vast majority of these books are general-purpose user guides that explain how to use the features available in Excel (often by simply rewording the text in the help files). A few others focus on advanced issues such as macro programming or scientific applications. None (that’s right, none!) hones in on the one fundamental compo- nent of Excel that is critically important to every user: formulas. Fact is, formulas are what make a spreadsheet a spreadsheet. The more you know about formulas, the better your spreadsheets will be. It’s that simple. Excel is the spreadsheet market leader, by a long shot. This is the case not only because of Microsoft’s enormous marketing clout but also because it is truly the best spreadsheet available. One area in which Excel’s superiority is most apparent is formulas. Excel has some special tricks up its sleeve in the formulas department. As you’ll see, Excel lets you do things with formulas that are impossible with other spreadsheets. It’s a safe bet that only about ten percent of Excel users really understand how to get the most out of worksheet formulas. In this book, I attempt to nudge you into that elite group. Are you up to it? What You Should Know This is not a book for beginning Excel users. If you have absolutely no experience with Excel, this may not be the best book for you — unless you’re one of a rare breed who can learn a new software product almost instantaneously. 4800-x FM.F 8/27/01 11:54 AM Page vii To get the most out of this book, you should have some background using Excel. Specifically, I assume that you know how to ◆ Create workbooks, insert sheets, save files, and other basic tasks ◆ Navigate through a workbook ◆ Use Excel’s menus, toolbars, and dialog boxes ◆ Use basic Windows features, such as file management and copy and paste techniques If you’re an experienced spreadsheet user, but you are new to Excel, Chap- ter 1 presents a concise overview of what this product has to offer. What You Should Have To make the best use of this book, you need a copy of Microsoft Excel. When I wrote the current edition of the book, I was using Excel 2002 (which is part of Microsoft Office XP). With a few exceptions (noted in the text), the material in this book also applies to all earlier versions of Excel that are still in use. To use the examples on the companion CD-ROM, you’ll need a CD-ROM drive. Duh! The examples on the CD-ROM are discussed further in the “About the Companion CD-ROM” section, later in this preface. I use Excel for Windows exclusively, and do not own a Macintosh. Therefore, I can’t guarantee that all of the examples will work with Excel for Macintosh. Excel’s cross-platform compatibility is pretty good, but it’s definitely not perfect. As far as hardware goes, the faster the better. And, of course, the more memory in your system, the happier you’ll be. And, I strongly recommend using a high- resolution video mode: at least 1024 x 768. Conventions in This Book Take a minute to skim this section and learn some of the typographic conventions used throughout this book. viii Preface 4800-x FM.F 8/27/01 11:54 AM Page viii Keyboard Conventions You need to use the keyboard to enter formulas. In addition, you can work with menus and dialog boxes directly from the keyboard — a method you may find eas- ier if your hands are already positioned over the keys. FORMULA LISTINGS Formulas usually appear on a separate line in monospace font. For example, I may list the following formula: =VLOOKUP(StockNumber,PriceList,2,False) Excel supports a special type of formula known as an array formula. When you enter an array formula, press Ctrl+Shift+Enter (not just Enter). Excel encloses an array formula in brackets in order to remind you that it’s an array formula. When I list an array formula, I include the brackets to make it clear that it is, in fact, an array formula. For example: {=SUM(LEN(A1:A10))} Do not type the brackets for an array formula.Excel will put them in automatically. VBA CODE LISTINGS This book also contains examples of VBA code. Each listing appears in a mono- space font ; each line of code occupies a separate line. To make the code easier to read, I usually use one or more tabs to create indentations. Indentation is optional, but it does help to delineate statements that go together. If a line of code doesn’t fit on a single line in this book, I use the standard VBA line continuation sequence: a space followed by an underscore character. This indi- cates that the line of code extends to the next line. For example, the following two lines comprise a single VBA statement: If Right(cell.Value, 1) = “!” Then cell.Value _ = Left(cell.Value, Len(cell.Value) - 1) You can enter this code either exactly as shown on two lines, or on a single line without the trailing underscore character. Excel 2002 Formulas ix ix 4800-x FM.F 8/27/01 11:54 AM Page ix [...]... 11 1 Other Function Categories 11 1 Analysis ToolPak Functions 11 2 Chapter 5 Manipulating Text 11 3 A Few Words about Text 11 3 How Many Characters in a Cell? 11 3 Numbers as Text 11 4 Text Functions 11 5... Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter 16 17 18 19 20 21 Intentional Circular References 425 Charting Techniques 4 41 Pivot Tables 489 Conditional Formatting and Data Validation 513 Creating Megaformulas 5 41 Tools and Methods for Debugging Formulas 559 4800-x FM.F xviii 8/27/ 01 11: 54 AM Page xviii Contents Part VI... 10 9 Lookup and Reference Functions 11 0 Database Functions 11 0 Text Functions 11 0 Logical Functions 11 0 Information Functions 11 0 Engineering Functions 11 0 User-Defined Functions... Chapter 10 covers a variety of miscellaneous calculations such as unit conversions and rounding xi 4800-x FM.F xii 8/27/ 01 11: 54 AM Page xii Preface Part III: Financial Formulas Part III consists of three chapters (Chapters 11 through 13 ) that deal with creating financial formulas You’ll find lots of useful formulas that you can adapt to your needs Most of the material in Chapters 11 through 13 was... Contains Text 11 5 Working with Character Codes 11 7 Determining Whether Two Strings Are Identical 11 9 Joining Two or More Cells 12 0 Displaying Formatted Values as Text 12 1 4800-x FM.F 8/27/ 01 11: 54 AM Page xxiii Contents Displaying Formatted Currency Values as Text 12 2 Repeating a Character... 11 Menus 11 Shortcut Menus 11 Smart Tags 12 Dialog Boxes 12 Toolbars 13 Drag-and-Drop 13 Keyboard Shortcuts 14 ... 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Introducing Worksheet Functions 97 Manipulating Text 11 3 Working with Dates and Times 13 9 Counting and Summing Techniques 17 9 Lookups 211 Databases and Lists 237 Miscellaneous Calculations 269 Part III Financial Formulas Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Introducing... 210 Chapter 8 Lookups 211 What Is a Lookup Formula? 211 Functions Relevant to Lookups 212 Basic Lookup Formulas 213 The VLOOKUP Function 213 The HLOOKUP Function 215 The LOOKUP Function 216 Combining... 13 5 Custom VBA Text Functions 13 6 Chapter 6 Working with Dates and Times 13 9 How Excel Handles Dates and Times 13 9 Understanding Date Serial Numbers 14 0 Entering Dates 14 1 Understanding Time Serial Numbers 14 2 Entering Times 14 4... Chapter 10 768 Chapter 11 768 Chapter 12 769 Chapter 13 769 Chapter 15 770 Chapter 16 770 Chapter 17 7 71 Chapter 18 . 0-7645-4800-X *85555-AGBGFb www.mandtbooks.com 4800-X cover 8 /16 / 01 10:52 AM Page 1 Excel 2002 Formulas 4800-x FM.F 8/27/ 01 11: 54 AM Page i 4800-x FM.F 8/27/ 01 11: 54 AM Page ii Excel 2002 Formulas John Walkenbach M&T. 8/27/ 01 11: 54 AM Page xi Part III: Financial Formulas Part III consists of three chapters (Chapters 11 through 13 ) that deal with creating financial formulas. You’ll find lots of useful formulas. tables • Debug formulas and take advantage of Excel s auditing tools • Develop custom worksheet functions with VBA Excel 2002 Formulas $39.99 USA $59.99 CANADA £29.99 UK incl. VAT Excel 2002 Formulas Walkenbach Reader