WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:11.500 --> 00:00:16.130 Functions are a great time-saving option for calculating data in your worksheet. 00:00:16.130 --> 00:00:20.570 They can be used in place of formulas when a formula would be too long, or just too complicated 00:00:20.570 --> 00:00:22.099 to write out manually. 00:00:22.099 --> 00:00:26.820 To access the function library, go to the Formulas tab on the Ribbon. 00:00:26.820 --> 00:00:29.830 Here, you'll find hundreds of functions to choose from. 00:00:29.830 --> 00:00:34.440 They've all been organized into categories to make them easier to find. 00:00:34.440 --> 00:00:38.290 For example, under Financial, you'll find functions that deal with things like interest 00:00:38.290 --> 00:00:40.680 and monthly payments. 00:00:40.680 --> 00:00:46.050 Under Text, you can perform text manipulations, like converting lowercase to uppercase, replacing 00:00:46.050 --> 00:00:48.280 text, and more. 00:00:48.280 --> 00:00:52.771 Date & Time includes functions that return the current date, time, day of the week, and 00:00:52.771 --> 00:00:55.270 other useful data. 00:00:55.270 --> 00:00:59.610 Some of the most common functions are pretty simple, though (like SUM and AVERAGE). 00:00:59.610 --> 00:01:06.510 You can access these using the drop-down arrow under AutoSum. 00:01:06.510 --> 00:01:10.960 In this example, I'd like to add these ten cells to calculate the total. 00:01:10.960 --> 00:01:15.650 If I tried to create a formula for that, I'd have to add each cell individually. 00:01:15.650 --> 00:01:19.560 Not only would that be tedious—it would also make the formula really long, especially 00:01:19.560 --> 00:01:23.000 if I had, say, a hundred cells that I wanted to add. 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:27.170 So instead of creating a formula, I'm going to use a function. 00:01:27.170 --> 00:01:31.100 First, select the cell where you want the answer to appear. 00:01:31.100 --> 00:01:32.500 Then choose a function. 00:01:32.500 --> 00:01:38.660 In our case, we'll open the AutoSum menu... and then choose Sum. 00:01:38.660 --> 00:01:44.240 Now Excel has inserted the function, and also selected the cells that are being added together. 00:01:44.240 --> 00:01:48.400 If it selects the wrong cells, you can always change that by dragging the corner handles 00:01:48.400 --> 00:01:51.270 here. 00:01:51.270 --> 00:01:56.899 When you're done, press Enter on your keyboard... and the answer will appear. 00:01:56.899 --> 00:02:02.160 Let's look at this function in a little more detail. 00:02:02.160 --> 00:02:05.980 Just like formulas, functions always start with an equal sign. 00:02:05.980 --> 00:02:09.869 But you may have noticed that there are no mathematical operators (such as addition or 00:02:09.869 --> 00:02:13.049 subtraction) like you would normally see in a formula. 00:02:13.049 --> 00:02:18.890 Instead, functions use a specific syntax that includes the name of the function... followed 00:02:18.890 --> 00:02:22.560 by one or more arguments in parentheses. 00:02:22.560 --> 00:02:27.720 The arguments tell the function which cells or numbers to use when calculating the result. 00:02:27.720 --> 00:02:32.950 In this example, we only have one argument, even though there are two different cell references. 00:02:32.950 --> 00:02:36.840 This is called a range of cells, or a cell range. 00:02:36.840 --> 00:02:42.010 A cell range is represented by two different cell references with a colon in between. 00:02:42.010 --> 00:02:47.300 In this case, the range consists of all of the cells between D3 and D12. 00:02:47.300 --> 00:02:55.250 If you want to use more than one argument, you'll need to separate each one with a comma. 00:02:55.250 --> 00:02:57.500 Let's try a different function now. 00:02:57.500 --> 00:03:01.310 In this example, we have a column for the date that each item was ordered, and the date 00:03:01.310 --> 00:03:02.970 that it was received. 00:03:02.970 --> 00:03:07.450 What I'd like to know is how many business days it took for each item to be delivered. 00:03:07.450 --> 00:03:11.659 First, select the cell where you want the function to go. 00:03:11.659 --> 00:03:15.150 Then choose a function if you know what category it's in. 00:03:15.150 --> 00:03:18.680 If you don't, you can try searching for it instead. 00:03:18.680 --> 00:03:24.220 Just click the Insert Function command on the far left of the Ribbon. 00:03:24.220 --> 00:03:27.990 Searching for functions can be tricky, but for more experienced users, this can be an 00:03:27.990 --> 00:03:30.450 extremely useful tool. 00:03:30.450 --> 00:03:33.349 Just type a description of the function you're looking for. 00:03:33.349 --> 00:03:36.650 I'm looking for something that'll count the number of days that have elapsed, so I'll 00:03:36.650 --> 00:03:41.200 type "count days," and then press Enter. 00:03:41.200 --> 00:03:43.580 We've gotten a lot of different results here. 00:03:43.580 --> 00:03:48.629 To learn more about a function, just click the name... and a description will appear 00:03:48.629 --> 00:03:49.680 below. 00:03:49.680 --> 00:03:54.680 The function called NETWORKDAYS returns the number of workdays between two dates, and 00:03:54.680 --> 00:03:56.690 that's exactly what we want. 00:03:56.690 --> 00:04:02.610 So I'm just going to click OK... and another dialog box will appear. 00:04:02.610 --> 00:04:06.080 There will be separate fields for each argument in the function. 00:04:06.080 --> 00:04:11.810 This function has up to three arguments: Start_date, End_date, and Holidays. 00:04:11.810 --> 00:04:15.540 When you click a field, you'll see a description of it below. 00:04:15.540 --> 00:04:20.580 And if you need more help, you can click the link that says, "Help on this function." 00:04:20.580 --> 00:04:30.430 For the start date, I'll select cell E3... and for the end date, I'll select F3. 00:04:30.430 --> 00:04:34.341 We know the Holidays argument is optional because it's not in bold, so I'm going to 00:04:34.341 --> 00:04:36.600 leave that one blank. 00:04:36.600 --> 00:04:41.690 Before you continue, you can check the result of the function here. 00:04:41.690 --> 00:04:47.410 When you're ready, click OK... and the function will be added to the worksheet. 00:04:47.410 --> 00:04:52.030 Just like with formulas, you can copy the function using the fill handle here. 00:04:52.030 --> 00:04:58.800 And now we can see the number of business days it took for each item to be delivered. 00:04:58.800 --> 00:05:02.860 If you've never used functions before, the syntax may seem a little strange at first. 00:05:02.860 --> 00:05:06.800 But with some practice, you're bound to get the hang of it—and soon, you'll be using 00:05:06.800 --> 00:05:08.840 your favorite functions over and over.