Functions in Excel: what are they used for?

It should be noted that the well-known Excel program has a huge functionality, even a small part of which often remains behind the scenes. This is especially true for daily office work, many of whose operations can be automated. In the environment of professional users, functions in Excel are extremely in demand, with which you can even create your own formulas. However, and what is it generally?

The fact is that functions in this application are called simple text commands that are interpreted by the computer, allowing you to carry out even very complex mathematical calculations. To make it clearer to you, let's give an illustrative example. What do you think, what are the functions in Excel of this kind: "= AVERAGE (A1: A5)"? If we decipher the abbreviation at the beginning, then in Russian it will be "the average value from the range of cells from A1 to A5 inclusive." The ":" sign denotes not the division, but the range.

I must say that manually entering the numbers of cells does not make sense, since when they are selected with the left mouse button the program itself substitutes them in the formula input line. The possibility of such calculations makes Excel functions a powerful tool that allows you to perform complex mathematical actions by linking tables to a single interactive system.

How to enter them?

Like functions, formulas should begin with the "=" sign in the input line. Then follows the abbreviation for the expression, followed by brackets (as in the example above). Inside are placed arguments that are a graphic representation of the values that are used in the calculations. As functions, Excel can use not only individual cells, but also a single value, as well as whole series of cell references. So, the expression "= SUM (12; 24)" will give you the result "36", whereas a similar system "= SUMM (A12: A24)" will give out the sum of those numbers that are in the specified range.

Nested functions

As we already said, this tool is so powerful that it allows solving even extremely complicated equations. To do this, Excel (whose function value can be very different) uses other expressions in complex systems. To make it clearer, let's give a practical example: "= SUMM (A5: A10; AVERAGE (B7: C10))". Note that seven-fold nesting is supported. Of course, you can enter more arguments, but this expression will no longer be considered.

However, Microsoft experts are constantly working on improving their products, so there is a chance that soon the program will understand even more complex expressions.

"Master"

For beginners, a "Wizard of Functions" is provided, which greatly facilitates their creation. You can use it in two ways:

• Find the "Insert" tab and select the "Function" sub-item in it;
• You can shorten the time by finding the "Insert function" button on the toolbar .

As we already said, you can also use the Microsoft spreadsheet to students, since it allows you to calculate more "vital" examples. Thus, the graph of a function in Excel will allow us to obtain a convenient and intuitive graphical solution of problems of the form "y = f (x), the interval [a, b]. Step h = 0.1. " This will greatly facilitate the learning process.