WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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Functions are a great time-saving option for
calculating data in your worksheet. They can

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be used in place of formulas when a formula
would be too long, or just too complicated

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to write out manually.

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To access the function library, go to the
Formulas tab on the Ribbon. Here, you'll find

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hundreds of functions to choose from. They've
all been organized into categories to make

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them easier to find.

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For example, under Financial, you'll find
functions that deal with things like interest

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and monthly payments.
Under Text, you can perform text manipulations,

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like converting lowercase to uppercase, replacing
text, and more.

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Date & Time includes functions that return
the current date, time, day of the week, and

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other useful data.
Some of the most common functions are pretty

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simple, though (like SUM and AVERAGE). You
can access these using the drop-down arrow

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under AutoSum.

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In this example, I'd like to add these ten
cells to calculate the total. If I tried to

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create a formula for that, I'd have to add
each cell individually.

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Not only would that be tedious—it would
also make the formula really long, especially

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if I had, say, a hundred cells that I wanted
to add. So instead of creating a formula,

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I'm going to use a function.

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First, select the cell where you want the
answer to appear. Then choose a function.

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In our case, we'll open the AutoSum menu…
and then choose Sum.

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Now Excel has inserted the function, and also
selected the cells that are being added together.

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If it selects the wrong cells, you can always
change that by dragging the corner handles

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here.

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When you're done, press Enter on your keyboard…
and the answer will appear.

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Let's look at this function in a little more
detail.

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Just like formulas, functions always start
with an equal sign. But you may have noticed

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that there are no mathematical operators (such
as addition or subtraction) like you would

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normally see in a formula. Instead, functions
use a specific syntax that includes the name

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of the function… followed by one or more
arguments in parentheses.

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The arguments tell the function which cells
or numbers to use when calculating the result.

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In this example, we only have one argument,
even though there are two different cell references.

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This is called a range of cells, or a cell
range.

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A cell range is represented by two different
cell references with a colon in between. In

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this case, the range consists of all of the
cells between D3 and D12. If you want to use

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more than one argument, you'll need to separate
each one with a comma.

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Let's try a different function now. In this
example, we have a column for the date that

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each item was ordered, and the date that it
was received. What I'd like to know is how

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many business days it took for each item to
be delivered.

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First, select the cell where you want the
function to go. Then choose a function if

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you know what category it's in.

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If you don't, you can try searching for it
instead. Just click the Insert Function command

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on the far left of the Ribbon.

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Searching for functions can be tricky, but
for more experienced users, this can be an

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extremely useful tool. Just type a description
of the function you're looking for. I'm looking

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for something that'll count the number of
days that have elapsed, so I'll type "count

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days," and then press Enter.

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We've gotten a lot of different results here.
To learn more about a function, just click

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the name… and a description will appear
below.

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The function called NETWORKDAYS returns the
number of workdays between two dates, and

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that's exactly what we want. So I'm just going
to click OK… and another dialog box will

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appear.

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There will be separate fields for each argument
in the function. This function has up to three

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arguments: Start_date, End_date, and Holidays.
When you click a field, you'll see a description

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of it below. And if you need more help, you
can click the link that says, "Help on this

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function."

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For the start date, I'll select cell E3…
and for the end date, I'll select F3. We know

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the Holidays argument is optional because
it's not in bold, so I'm going to leave that

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one blank.

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Before you continue, you can check the result
of the function here. When you're ready, click

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OK… and the function will be added to the
worksheet.

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Just like with formulas, you can copy the
function using the fill handle here.

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And now we can see the number of business
days it took for each item to be delivered.

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If you've never used functions before, the
syntax may seem a little strange at first.

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But with some practice, you're bound to get
the hang of it—and soon, you'll be using

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your favorite functions over and over.