SUM Function in Excel
Excel is a mathematical spreadsheet where you can perform multiple calculations with the help of Excel Formulas. These are automated formulas which refreshes automatically once you refresh your data in a given range. Here you should know about “Excel Ranges” before starting to use Excel Formulas.
You can SUM (Add) multiple numbers in a given range of excel and get the total amount with just few clicks. So Let’s learn this most basic Excel formula
Sum Function Syntax:
1. =SUM(Range1,Range2……)2. =SUM(Range1,Range2……)3. =SUM(Range Start:Range End) i.e. =SUM(A2:A4) When should we use the SUM Function?
This formulas can be used to calculate the total of any range/cell reference given in excel. We can use multiple range to find the Total/Sum of given values or we may enter/select values to get the total.
So if you do simple math 2+2=4, you may use this formula to do the same in excel
Things To Remember
– This formula should strictly be used with Numbers only
– If this formula is showing #Ref error, it means that you have deleted or added a Row
– If this formula is showing #N/A error, it means that your range might contain text
Methods For Sum Function
- Method 1: If you look at the below image, we used Cell References only in the formula i.e. B2, B3,B4,B5. Cell G2 is showing the output as highlighted below:
- Method 2: If you look at the below image, we used Range and Cell References only in the formula i.e. B2:B7, B10, B13, B15:B17. Cell G5 is showing the output as highlighted below:
- Method 3: If you look at the below image, we used Range and Cell References only in the formula i.e. B2:B24. Cell G8 is showing the output as highlighted below:
All above mentioned formulas are using the relative references which means that these are dynamic ranges, so if you copy these formulas or paste it somewhere else or drag in rows or columns, ranges will be automatically updated relatively.
So when your Excel Ranges are fixed, you should make excel ranges Fixed/Absolute range. In order to make excel ranges absolute, you can fix those excel range by putting “$” i.e. if you want to fix the columns only, you should use
=Sum($A2:$A10) >> Here we are fixing the column "A" or
=Sum(A$2:A$10) >> Here we are fixing the Rows by putting $ front of 2 and 10
=Sum($A$2:$A$10) >> Here we are fixing both Rows and Columns by putting $
