Insert Basic Functions

Functions can help you do math, calculate standard deviation, edit text, or find specific types of data.

Today, we are going to focus on two functions: the SUM function and the PROPER function.

To start, let’s navigate to the Employee Sales sheet (or Sheet1).

SUM function

The SUM function (a Math & Trig function) adds values together.

Let’s say we want to see the total amount of sales made by employees in Q1 and Q2.

To do this, we first have to insert a new column to the left of Hire Date (Column E).

Click Column E to highlight it
Right click then click Insert to add a column
Type Total Sales in Cell E1 and resize the column if necessary
- You can use the same steps to insert rows.

Now we can use the SUM function to add Sales Q1 and Sales Q2 together.

Click Cell E2
Type =SUM(C2,D2)
- Option 1: Type C2,D2 OR
- Option 2: Click C2, type a comma (,) then click D2
Hit Enter on your keyboard to SUM these two cells together

To easily sum the remaining employee sales, we can use Autofill.

Click Cell E2
Hover over the bottom right corner of the cell until you get a black plus sign (+)
Click and hold when you see the black plus sign (+)
Drag the fill handle to Cell E23, then unclick

PROPER function

As we are looking at our data, we can see that the state names in Column A are all lowercase.

To make our spreadsheet more visually appealing, we can use the PROPER function (a Text function) to change this text to proper capitalization. This will capitalize the first letter of each word and convert all other letters to lowercase.

To do this, we first have to insert a new column before Salesperson (Column B)

Click Column B to highlight it
Right click then click Insert to add a column

Now, we can change the capitalization with the PROPER function

Click Cell B1
Type =PROPER(A1)
- Option 1: Type A1 OR
- Option 2: Click A1
Hit Enter on your keyboard

To easily capitalize the remaining state names, we can use Autofill.

Click Cell B1
Hover over the bottom right corner of the cell until you get a black plus sign (+)
Click and hold when you see the black plus sign (+)
Drag the fill handle to Cell B23, then unclick

Our next step is to place these state names back in Column A using a special copy and paste.

Click Column B to highlight it
Right click Column B then click Copy
- You can also hit Ctrl + C (or Cmd + C on a Mac) on your keyboard to copy data
Click Column A to highlight it
Right click Column A
Click Paste Special
Under Paste, click Values
- This will let us copy and paste just the text

Since Column B is now duplicated, we can delete it.

Click Column B to highlight it
Right click then click Delete

More Help

To learn more about functions, open Excel and navigate to the Formulas tab and the Function Library section.

For more information on inserting advanced functions, visit the Introduction to Excel Part II: Insert Advanced Functions page.

You can also visit the the Microsoft’s Excel Functions (by Category) website.