Seldom used
Functions in
MS Excel
M Suresh Kumar
1. Arrays
2. Counting & Summing Techniques
3. Working with Date & Time
4. Conditional Formatting & Data Validation
5. Pivot tables
Arrays
An array is simply a collection of items operated on collectively or
individually
Array can be one dimensional or two dimensional
one dimensional array : consists of one row or one column
two dimensional array: covers both rows & columns ie., a range of cells
Counting & Summing Techniques
• Getting a quick Average or Sum
• Counting:
• Number of Cells
• Blank Cells
• Non blank cells
• Numeric cells
• Non-text cells
• Text cells
• Logical values
• Error values in a range
• Advanced counting techniques
Summing Formulae:
(SUM function can take up to 32 arguments)
• Summing all cells in a Range
• Computing a cumulative sum
• Summing top “n” values
• Conditional sums using a Single Criteria
• Summing only negative values
• Summing values based on different Range
• Summing values based on Text Comparison
• Summing values based on date Comparison
• Conditional sums using multiple criteria
Working with Date & Time
• To Excel a date is simply a number
• A date is a serial number that represents the number of days since 1st Jan 1900
•Serial number 1 corresponds to January 1,1900 and serial 2 corresponds to
January 2,1900 so on…..
• You can not work with dates prior to 1st January 1900 , but you can enter it as text,
instead of date format
• You can choose your date system 1900 or 1904 ( One advantage in using 1904
system is that it enables you to display negative time values. For eg. (5:30 PM –
6:45 PM) can not be displayed in 1900 system where as 1904 system displays it as
-1:15 ie. Difference of 1 hour & 15 minutes)
• The time is measured as a fraction of 1 which represents 24 hrs. One minute is
represented approximately as .00069444 ie., = 1/(24*60).
• Similarly a second is represented as =1/(24*60*60) which approximately
0.00001157
• The smallest unit of time in Excel is One thousandth of a second before midnight
Conditional Formatting & Data Validation
• Conditional formatting enables us to apply cell formatting selectively and
automatically, based on the contents of the Cell.
(eg., we can set the background colour of a Cell as yellow when ever the
Cell contains a negative number)
• Is very useful in quickly identifying erroneous cell entries
• We can have quite a number of conditions applied to
• check the correctness
• Highlight particular values in cells
• To apply conditional formatting to a cell or range:
1. Select the range or cell
2. Choose Format  Conditional Format menu
3. In the drop down box, select either Cell Value Is (for simple formatting)
or Formula Is (for formatting based on a formula)
4. Specify a condition or enter formula
5. Click format button & specify the formatting to apply if the condition
is TRUE
6. Click OK
Pivot Tables
A pivot table is essentially a dynamic summary report generated
from a database
Pivot table terminology:
1. Column field : A field that has a column orientation in the Pivot table
2. Data Area: The cells in a Pivot table that contain the summary data.
3. Grand totals: A row or column that displays totals for all cells in a row or
column
4. Group: A collection of items treated as a single item
5. Item: An element in a field that appears as a row or column header in a
Pivot table
6. Source data: The data used to create a pivot table
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