Question: How to Use Excel's SUM Function?
Answer:
Excel SUM Function
Functions in spreadsheets are just built-in formulas. They have been added to simplify performing commonly used mathematical operations in the spreadsheet.
Probably the most frequently used of these functions is Excel's SUM function, which adds up the values in a range of cells.
Calculations in Excel are often used to total a column or a row of data. The Excel SUM function offers a shortcut to adding up these columns and rows of data.
If we were to create a formula that adds up the contents of cells B7 to B10, the formula would be:
=B7+B8+B9+B10
Writing this takes some time even if we are using pointing to add cell references. Also, the longer the formula, the greater the potential for errors being introduced.
The SUM function allows us to write only the start and end points of the data range separated by a colon ( : ) and the function will add together the contents of all the cells in the range.
The same formula, written using the SUM function would be:
= SUM(B7 : B10)More Spreadsheets Q&A
