Formulaic Confusion Part 2: Operators

No, no, no, I'm not talking about phones, I'm once again talking about Excel! Specifically when you're working with formulas in Excel. The operator is one of the greatest ways of communicating with Excel and telling it what to do. There are several different kinds of operators, and you can find out about ALL of them by searching for "operators" in the Excel Help files. But the important ones, the ones you need to know for your Excel Core Microsoft Office Specialist certification are the following:

Arithmetic Operators
+ (Addition) e.g. 3+3=6
- (Subtraction) e.g. 4-3=1
* (Asterisk for multiplying) e.g. 4*3=12
/ (Forward slash for dividing) e.g. 12/3=4
% (Percent) e.g. 20%

OK, those were pretty simple. They're all located on the number pad (except percent) on the right hand side of your keyboard, as well as the top row of the keyboard, above the numbers (including percent).

Comparison Operators
= (Equal to) e.g. A1=B1
> (Greater than) e.g. A1>B1
< (Less than) e.g. A1< B1
>= (Greater than or equal to) e.g. A1>=B1
<= (Less than or equal to) e.g. A1<=B1 <> (Not equal to) e.g. A1<>B1
These are called comparison operators, because you can use them to compare values. When you compare values, the result is a logical value of either TRUE or FALSE. A great example of where you would use these operators is in the IF function. The first part of this function means you HAVE to compare values, and these operators are going to help you do that.

Reference Operators
: (Colon) (Used to refer to a range of cells) e.g B5:B15 which reads as B5 through to B15
, (Comma) (Used to refer to multiple cells which are not adjacent to each other) e.g B5, B12, B15
You can even mix these operators up together as needed. For example if I asked you to add A12 to A16 AND C12 to C16, you would type it like this:

=SUM(A12:A16,C12:C16)

These operators all work together as part of the "language" you use to communicate with Excel and tell it what you want. When answering questions in the certification exam, don't forget to READ the question carefully to pick up as many clues from it as possible, including what operators you are going to use.

See you tomorrow when we look at absolute references!