For many users, Excel spreadsheets are a tool for bulk data storage. and at most also for their graphic representation. And, of course, there is nothing wrong with that, because this application is excellent for such use, both for its own format of a sheet divided into cells formed by the intersection of rows and columns, and for the tools that Microsoft adds with Over the years. And we are talking about a really old application, to the extent that next year 2025 it will not be less than 40 years old.

Now, while this usage is already very useful, to stick with it alone is to waste 95% (a rough amount, if you know what I mean) of Microsoft Excel’s potential, and that is deployed mainly (though of course not exclusively) when we start using its features, more than 5,000, among which it is practically impossible not to find one that allows us to process the data as we need.

To make it easier to find the function needed to perform a certain process, Excel has an “Insert Function” tool.which we can open by clicking on the control e.g will appear to the left of the formula bar. In it, as you can see in the image above, we can enter a description of what we need and perform a search to find the right one. Of course, we also have the option of using third-party services, such as this AI-based one, to create complete formulas for our specific needs.

However, while any help is always welcome, There are some functions that, due to their usefulness, are practical to know how to use directlywithout having to resort to help, whether internal or external. And that’s why we’ll look below at the Excel functions that we can rank among the most important, mainly because their use is quite common and that’s why they always appear in the most used lists.

Just as a reminder before you start, in case you’re using this article to get started with Excel functions, to enter a formula, whether it’s just operator-based or has a function as well, The first character you must always enter in the cell where you will write it is “=” (without quotes). With that reminder in mind, let’s look at the list:

Addition: Sums a range of cells. Example: =sum(a1:b3) adds the contents of the specified range, i.e. the contents of cells A1, A2, A3, B1, B2 and B3.

Average– Calculates the average of values ​​in a range of cells. Example: =average(a1:b3) sums the contents of that range and then divides the result by the number of cells with numeric values.

min: parses the value of cells in a range and returns the lowest value from them. Example: =min(a1:b3).

Max: parses the value of cells in a range and returns the highest value from them. Example: =max(a1:b3).

Number: parses the contents of a range of cells and tells us how many of them have numeric values. Example: =count(a1:b3).

CountA: analyzes the contents of a range of cells and tells us how many of them are not empty. Example: =count(a1:b3).

Yeah– Evaluates a condition and returns one value if true and another value if false. Example =IF(B2>=5;»Passed»;»Failed»)=IF(B2>=5;»Passed»;»Failed») checks the contents of cell B2 and returns “Pass” if equal to or greater than 5, or “Fail” if less.

SearchX: performs a search in a given range and returns a matching result in a second range that is also specified in the formula. Let’s look at a more developed example. Imagine that you have an Excel sheet in which you have entered, for example, the prices of certain products

So you need to find the price of one of the products, for example oranges. In this case, you should use a formula =searchx(«orange»;A2:A6;B2:B6) which, as you can see, is split into (“value to search for”; the range to search for the specified value; the range to search for the associated value).

This function combines what HLookup and VLookup offer and allows you to search both row and column ranges.

Concat– Allows you to concatenate text strings, cell contents and formula results into a text string. Taking the example of the previous function, the fruit price list, again, we can use a formula =concat(«The price of «;A2;» is «;B2;» euros») and as a result we get the string “Apple price is 0.6 euros.”

Optionally, you can also use the Concatenate function, which works exactly the same and is compatible with older versions of Excel. However, Microsoft plans to remove it in the future.

Today: returns the current date. Use: =today()

Now– Returns the current date and time. Use: =now()

However, note in these two functions that they always return the current value, not the value at the time the formula was written. This means that if you create an Excel document today and type =today() in a cell, the value that appears in it is 07/03/2024, but if you open the same spreadsheet again tomorrow, the value that appears in the cell will be 04/07/2024. This means that this function is used to perform calculations with the current date and/or time, not to enter a permanent timestamp into the document.

Round: allows us to round a number with many decimal places to the desired amount. For example, with =round(a2;2) We take the numeric value present in cell A2 and tell Excel that we want it to reduce the number of decimal places to two if it has more.

Long: parses the text string we specify and returns the total number of characters in it. With the formula =long(A2) applied to the example fruit table, Excel returns “7” as the result, which is the number of characters in the word “Apple”.

Ifdate: compares two dates and returns the difference in days, months, years, or combinations thereof. Let’s look at a simple example where we also use the Today function we saw earlier. Imagine, for example, that you want to count down from the current date to a future date

As you might have guessed, the value displayed in cell A1 is the one returned by the Today function, while we entered the value in cell A2 manually. So we use a formula to get the difference in days between the two =ifdate(A2;B2;»D») In, as you may have already deduced, D means we want to get the difference in days. If we want it in months, we use M and to display it in years, we use Y.