What Is Excel Formula? How to Use Formulas in Microsoft Excel?

What Is Excel Formula?

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft. It features calculation or computation capabilities, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).

If all you know is to use Excel to enter words and numbers to make worksheets, you’re doing it wrong. Microsoft Excel has more functions than you know, and these features are also much more powerful. For example, you can use formulas in Excel to perform calculations.

By using formulas in Excel, you can add, subtract, multiply, and divide in Excel without using any built-in functions (like Excel functions). It is easy to use formulas in Excel: you just need to use these basic operators: +, -, *, /, and ^ and all formulas start with an equal (=) sign.

In this post, we will introduce some most used Excel formulas you may use. We will also show you how to use formulas in Microsoft Excel.

How to Merge or Unmerge Cells in Excel (without Losing Data)?

Do you know how to merge or unmerge cells in Excel without losing data? In this article, we will show you some useful guides.

Read More

How to Create a Formula that Refers to Values in other Cells?

As mentioned above, you can use +, -, *, /, and ^ to calculate quickly. Here is the Excel formulas list and how to use Excel commands (formulas):

To Add, you can do this:

Step 1: Click a cell to select it.

Step 2: Type the equal sign = into that cell.

Step 3: Select a cell or type the address of that cell into the selected cell. The address of a cell in Excel is the row number and the column number of that cell.

Step 4: Enter an operator like +, -, *, /, or ^ according to your need.

Step 5: Select the next cell, or type the address into the selected cell.

Step 6: Press Enter. Then, you can see the calculation result in the selected cell with the formula.

To Subtract, select the destination cell, type “=cell 1-cell 2”, then press Enter.

To Multiply, select the destination cell, type “=cell1*cell2”, then press Enter.

To Divide, select the destination cell, type “=cell 1/cell 2”, then press Enter.

To Power, select the destination cell, type “=cell 1^cell 2”, then press Enter.

The data in the destination cell is with a formula. If you want to copy that data to another location, you should not directly copy it because the formula will be copied at the same time and the data will be unavailable in another cell. You need to paste values in another cell.

How to See a Formula in Excel?

If you want to know whether a cell is using a formula or which formula is used by a cell, do you know how to find the formula?

It is easy to do this. You just need to click that cell and see the formula in the formula bar.

On the other hand, you can also double-click into that cell and see the formula in that cell.

Enter a Formula that Contains a Built-In Function in Excel

Formular is not built in Excel, while Excel function is inserted in this program. These features have a lot in common. They have the same purpose: to calculate and solve problems for you. You can also enter a formula that contains a built-in function in Excel.

Here is how to do this:

Step 1: Select an empty cell as the destination cell.

Step 2: Type an equal sign = and then type a function. For example, if you want to get the sum of the data, you need to type “=SUM”.

Step 3: Type an opening parenthesis (.

Step 4: Select the range of cells you want to calculate. If there are many cells, you can directly drag them from the first one to the last one.

Step 5: Type a closing parenthesis ).

Step 6: Press Enter, then you will see the result.

The Parts of an Excel Formula

Now, you know how to use formulas in Excel to achieve your aim. Here, we will introduce the parts of an Excel formula.

1. Functions: The above example is the SUM function in excel.
2. References: A2, B2, and D2 return the value in cell A2, B2, and D2.
3. Constants: Numbers or text values entered directly into a formula, such as 2.
4. Operators: The * (asterisk) operator multiplies numbers, the ^ (caret) operator raises a number to a power, and the + (add) operator adds the values.

How to Delete or Remove a Formula?

Here are two main situations:

• You want to delete a formula but keep the results generated.
• You want to delete an array formula.

We will introduce these two situations in this part.

How to Delete a Formula but Keep the Results?

You can use these steps to delete a formula by keeping the results:

Step 1: Click the target cell, then copy it.

Step 2: Paste in the same cell by using the Paste Values option.

Here is a second guide:

Step 1: Select the cell or the range of cells that contains the formula and you want to remove the formula.

If the formula is an array formula, you need to first select all cells in the range of cells that contains the array formula. You can use these steps to do this:

1. Click a cell in the array formula.
2. Under the Home tab, click Find & Select in the Editing group, then click Go To.
3. Click the Special buttion.
4. Select the Current array option.

Step 2: Under the Home tab, click the Copy button in the Clipboard group.

Step 3: Under the Home tab, click the arrow below the Paste button image in the Clipboard group, then select Paste Values.

How to Delete an Array Formula?

If you want to delete an array formula, you need to select all cells in the range of cells that contains the array formula and delete it. Here are the steps you need to use:

Step 1: Click a cell in the array formula.

Step 2: Under the Home tab, click Find & Select in the Editing group, then click Go To.

Step 3: Click the Special button.

Step 4: Select Current array.

Step 5: Press DELETE.

How to Recover Your Lost or Deleted Excel Files on Windows and Mac?

If your important files are missing due to some reason, do you know how to get them back? Here are two data recovery programs you can try:

• MiniTool Power Data Recovery (for Windows)
• Stellar Data Recovery for Mac (for Mac)

Recover Excel Files on Windows Using MiniTool Power Data Recovery

MiniTool Power Data Recovery is a free file recovery tool that is designed by MiniTool Software. With it, you can recover your files from your data storage devices in different situations.

This software can recover many kinds of files like images, music files, videos, movies, documents, emails, archive files, and more. In addition, this software supports recovering data from computer internal hard drives, external hard drives, SSDs, memory cards, SD cards, USB flash drives, pen drives, and so forth.

• See how to use this software to recover data from hard drives.
• See how to use this software to recover data from different kinds of cards.

This software can run on all versions of Windows, including Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8/8.1, and Windows 7.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery has a free edition. With it, you can scan the drive you want to recover data from and recover up to 1 GB of files without paying any cent. You can click the following button to get this freeware.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

After downloading and installing this MiniTool software on your Windows computer, you can use these steps to retrieve your files:

Step 1: Open the software to enter its main interface. This software will show all drives it can detect.

Step 2: If you only need to recover Excel files, you can click the gear icon from the left menu, then only select the format of Excel under Document. Then, click the OK button to save the settings.

Step 3: Hover over the drive you want to recover data from, then click the Scan button to start scanning that drive.

Step 4: When the scanning process ends, you will see the scan results. Since you only choose to recover the missing Excel files, the scan results displayed by this software will only contain the Excel files. Select the files you want to recover. If you still remember the name of the Excel file, you can type the name into the search box and press Enter to directly locate it.

Step 5: Choose your needed files, then click the Save button.

Step 6: The Select a directory to save files interface will pop up. You can select a suitable location to save your selected files.

If you want to use this software to recover more files, you need to upgrade this free edition to an advanced one. You can pick up a proper edition from the MiniTool official site.

Recover Excel Files on Mac Using Stellar Data Recovery for Mac

Stellar Data Recovery for Mac is data recovery software that can run on a Mac computer. Likewise, this software can recover all kinds of files for you. It has a trial edition. You can first try it and see if it can find the files you want to recover. If you decide to use it to recover files, you need to use a full edition. You can also get one from MiniTool.

See how to use this software to recover data on Mac.

Wrap Things up

Don’t know how to use formulas in Excel? This article shows you some relative information. We hope the contents mentioned here can help you. Additionally, if you want to recover your deleted or lost Excel files, you can try MiniTool Power Data Recovery on Windows and Stellar Data Recovery for Mac on macOS.

Should you have other good suggestions or issues that need to be solved, you can let us know in the comments. You can also contact us via [email protected].