We're gonna use this simple table of data here to show you
the basic parts of formulas in spreadsheets, what the different types
are called, and how to combine them together to do most anything you want.
The first formula that we're going to do is we're just going to calculate the
order total and that's going to be the quantity times the price. If you want
to use your spreadsheet just like an old calculator, all you do is just type the
values directly in. Write 177 times $1.72 and that's gonna get you to
304.44. But, the problem with doing it this way is that you can't copy this
formula down and, if these values change, this formula doesn't automatically
update because it's just hard coded. This is probably the most basic type
of formula that you can do but it's not very useful. You don't want any hard
coded so let's delete that and let's start over. Let's type an equal sign. That
starts every formula. In any formula or function or whatever you do in Google
Sheets that's not a value, you need to start with an equals sign. Then, it gives you
this gray bracket underneath and what that's saying is your formula has just
started. I need some data. It's not finished yet so it's waiting for input.
The first cell that we want to give it is B6.
Left-click your mouse in B6 and it's already calculating saying I've got a
value, it's 177. But you're not done yet, right? You want to multiply that by C6.
Let's grab that value. You're getting 304.44 which is what you got when you
hard keyed but this one's more flexible. If I hit enter and I go back and I
change 1.72 to 1.89, this formula updates.This formula updates
bu it wouldn't if you hard keyed it. Another big advantage of using
formulas is you can copy them down. So I selected this cell and in the lower
right hand corner you get a little square. If you hover over that with your mouse
it turns into a plus sign. Left-click and drag it down or you can double click too
and stop where you want your formulas to stop and it copies them all down. It
saves you a ton of time. That's your most basic type of formulas.
Cell references, which is the first line here, combined with operators. Just
multiplying two cell references together. The second thing that you can do after
you hit the equal sign is use a function. I'm going to show you the COUNT function
works. And again, I hit equal. It's waiting for something. That's what the gray
bracket is. I'm going to type in COUNT and I'm gonna do with my caps lock on
because you're supposed to do these things in uppercase if you really want
to be proper. But, you can do it in lowercase to if you want. So I typed in
COUNT. This is listing all of the functions that are available that start
with COUNT. You can see it was filtering as I type so, if you just have a C in
here, it's gonna show you everything that starts with C. Another way to input this
function is to go to Insert function and this will show you the most common
functions. Actually, COUNT is on here because you will use COUNT all the time.
Let's left-click on that and this put in the two parentheses for me. Every
function has to have an opening in a closing parenthesis and those tell the
spreadsheet when you're starting to give it input and when you're done. As you
start to look at the helper text down here which always pops up after you type
in the name of the formula and you hit the first parenthesis. It can take a
value but it can take other values too if you want. So this is in brackets. What
that's saying is it's optional. We're on value one right now and that's
highlighted because Sheets is telling you that's where you are. If you go down,
it also has a little gray triangle which is giving you an explanation for what
value one is and it's just saying give me the range of data that you want
me to count. I'm gonna do it with my mouse. You can also just type it in or
use the arrow keys. In this case, I want D6 through D9. Left-click in D6, hold down
the left mouse key, and drag down to D9. Let off the mouse key and you see it put
the range into the function. This function is done if you want it to be.
Now, there's no little gray bracket here waiting for more data and it's showing
you a value that it's calculated. Let's go ahead and press Enter.
I've counted four. We're also going to do a total. This is going to be another
very common function that's going to work the same way and I just did that
one with my arrow keys. You see if you do these a lot, you get fast at it. The
next concept that I want to show you is stringing functions together for a
longer formula. You can string them together with other operators. In this
case, we're going to calculate the average. You would calculate the
average by dividing the total by the count, right? Although I just did these
in these two cells, you really could do D12 divided by D13. That's the
average. You could also kind of homebrew a function here. You could put the
SUM in the numerator and then you could divide it by the COUNT as the
denominator.
Close off the parentheses and type Enter. It's the same thing. So, you
strung two functions together. You could also just use the AVERAGE function if
you knew that existed an average these cells. Close off the parentheses. Hit the
escape key. Close off the parentheses. Hit enter. Same value. Let's give this a
date, right? If you want to give it today's date just use a popular function
called TODAY. It doesn't need any inputs but it still
needs parentheses because it's a function. Type enter. There you go.
That's the basics of how to use formulas and Google Sheets. I hope that was
helpful. If you liked that tutorial and you want to see others like it, you can
subscribe in the lower right-hand corner. Thanks!