Microsoft Excel - Sum Function Level: Basic - Intermediate

Today I continue my excel series. This tutorial will focus on the sum function. So lets begin.

First off, open excel and create a new document . Just to make it clear I'm using Excel 2007 which is quite different from previous versions mainly because of tabs.

Now lets put in some random data. I created two columns. One called Transaction Name other One is called Total Money. And then there is random names with money equivalents. Underneath there is a cell with the title TOTAL.

Here is how it looks:

ExcelDataPreparation

If at any point you have any question or specific question about how I achieved a certain result, don't hesitate to ask

THE SUM FUNCTION

1)The AutoSum button.

The easiest way to sum up a column of numbers is to click the AutoSum button in the "Home Tab". Here is a screenshot of the AutoSum.

AutoSumPicture

The AutoSum button will calculate the sum of numbers above it so if you select your numbers in the column and press autosum you will see the summed result underneath those numbers in the next row. Here is how it looks in my example.

FinalResult

2)Manual Cell Input

You could accomplisth the same result by typing in the "=" sign and then clicking on the cell with the number then " + " then next number then "+ " then next nunber etc. so if you have been following along with my example you could type in "=" in cell k11 and then click on k5 through k10 consecutively and you would achieve the same result. Your formula will be shown in the function bar at the top as soon as you press enter. Here is what it would look like!

SumVersion2

3)Range Sum

This is probably my favourite since I'm a programmer, but in any case. Using this method you are basically typing in the cell the equals sign again. Then specifying the name of the function "SUM" open parenthesis and specify the starting column then ":" and then last column so like this=SUM(value1:value2) . So to achieve the result using my example is going to look like this. = SUM(K5:K9). As always here is the screenshot

RangeSum

And there you have it. Three ways to calculate the sum for the specified values. As always comments are encouraged. See you in the next tutorial!