functions are a great time-saving option
for calculating data in your spreadsheet
they can be used in place of formulas
when a formula would be too long or just
too complicated to write out manually
many functions in Google sheets are
geared more towards advanced users and
it can be tricky figuring out how and
when to use them but other functions are
easy to use and can save you a lot of
time so in this video we'll start with
some basic information a few simple
functions as well as what you need to
know about entering them correctly in
this example I'd like to add these cells
to calculate the total if I tried to
create a formula for that I'd have to
add each cell individually not only
would that be tedious it would also make
the formula really long especially if I
had say a hundred cells that I wanted to
add so instead of creating a formula I'm
going to use a function first I'll
select the cells and click the functions
command if you don't see the functions
command click the three dots here to see
the rest of the commands
a drop-down menu will appear containing
a list of functions here you can find
the average or count the number of cells
in a selection I'm going to use the sum
function to add all of the cells and
find the total when you're done press
ENTER on your keyboard and the answer
will appear let's look at this function
in a little more detail
just like formulas functions always
start with an equal sign but you may
have noticed that there are no
mathematical operators such as addition
or subtraction like you would normally
see in a formula instead functions use a
specific syntax that includes the name
of the function followed by one or more
arguments in parentheses the arguments
tell the function which cells or numbers
to use when calculating the result in
this example we only have one argument
even though there are two different cell
references this is called a range of
cells or a cell range a cell range is
represented by two different cell
references with a colon in between in
this case the range consists of all the
cells from d3 through d12 if you want to
use more than one argument you'll need
to separate each one with a comma let's
try another function now that has a
different syntax in this example there's
a column for the date each item was
ordered and the date each item was
received I want to find out how many
business days it took for each order to
arrive I can use the network day's
function to find out how long it took
for each delivery go back to the
functions command here you can choose a
category in this case date to narrow
down the choices you can hover over each
function to see a brief description of
what action it performs just click a
function to insert it you can click the
question mark next to the cell to see
more detailed information although this
information may appear by default in
this case we need two arguments a start
date and an end date now I'll just
select the start date and the end date
make sure to separate them with a comma
and make sure it has a closing
parenthesis
remember that in order for the function
to work the syntax must be exact
if you enter a function incorrectly you
can click the cell and a window will
appear telling you what the function
needs
so just like with formulas you can copy
the function to other cells by using the
fill handle
and now we can see the number of days it
took for each item to be delivered if
functions are new to you the syntax for
some may look complicated and strange if
you are unsure of when or how to use a
particular function it's probably a good
idea to skip it however if you're
familiar with more common actions like
sum or average look closely at the
syntax and give functions a try they
might just be easier than you thought
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better life