Page 324 - Excel 2013 All-in-One For Dummies

306 Formulas 101
Table 1-1
Type
Arithmetic
Comparison
Text
Reference
The Different Types of Operators in Excel
Character
+ (plus sign)
– (minus sign)
* (asterisk)
/
%
^
=
>
<
>=
<=
<>
&
: (colon)
, (comma)
(space)
Operation
Addition
Subtraction or negation
Multiplication
Division
Percent (dividing by 100)
Exponentiation
Equal to
Greater than
Less than
Greater than or equal to
Less than or equal to
Not equal to
Concatenates (connects) entries to produce one continuous entry
Range operator that includes
Union operator that combines multiple refer- ences into one reference
Intersection operator that produces one reference to cells in common with two references
Example
=A2+B3
=A3–A2 or –C4
=A2*B3
=B3/A2
=B3%
=A2^3
=A2=B3
=B3>A2
=A2<B3
=B3>=A2
=A2<=B3
=A2<>B3
=A2&” “&B3t
=SUM(C4:D17)
=SUM(A2,C4:D17,B3)
=SUM(C3:C6 C3:E6)
“Smooth operator”
Most of the time, you’ll rely on the arithmetic operators when building formu- las in your spreadsheets that don’t require functions because these operators actually perform computations between the numbers in the various cell references and produce new mathematical results.
The comparison operators, on the other hand, produce only the logical value TRUE or the logical value FALSE, depending on whether the comparison is accurate. For example, say that you enter the following formula in cell A10:
=B10<>C10