How To Make Addition In Excel | Addition In Excel | Excel Tutorial Formulas | Learn Excel

Addition function in Ms - Excel

Addition is one of the basic and important mathematical functions that are used in almost every formula.

Addition is the adding or summing of elements. In our case, it is the addition of cell values.

Let us demonstrate the use of "addition" in various simple examples. For this, we need a new spreadsheet to work on. Open MS-Excel and select blank worksheet.

As you can see, there are various columns named A,B,C,D.. And various rows numbered 1,2,3..

To call or refer a particular cell, we use its cell reference value which is the combination of the "column-name and its row-number".

For instance, if I want to refer to this cell, we call it as "A3". Likewise this particular cell is called "G7".

1. For our first example, let us perform simple addition of two cells. In this example, we are going to count the total number of students in a class.

Under column A let us state the problem statements and Under column B let us state the corresponding problem values.

Let cell A1 state the number of girls in a classroom and B1 holds its value- 20
Likewise, cell A2 states the number of boys in a classroom and B2 holds its value-10
A3 states the total number of students in the class and B3 is to hold the resultant summed value which in our case is 30. That is, number of girls and boys.

If we are using the "cell reference" method, we simply click cell "B3" and starting with an equals to symbol "=" we write the cell references along with the mathematical operator "+" (plus). In this example, we type in "=B1+B2".

Press Enter and the value is calculated and displayed in cell B3.

The same can be done using an alternative method of "point-and-click". In this, first click on cell B3, type in "=" indicating a formula and then click on cell B1. Click cell B3 again and type in the addition operator "+" and then again click the cell B2. Press Enter and the resultant value is displayed in cell B3.

All of this seems easy when its simple addition that involves less number of cells. It becomes complex when the user is trying to sum up a lot of values which in many cases may lead to faulty formula creation or many such basic errors.

To simply avoid this problem, we have a predefined mathematical function called "SUM". The value of what is to be added is to be placed within a pair of round brackets.

Using this function in our example, click on cell B3 and type in "=" stating that it is a formula and define SUM. Open the round bracket "(" type in the first cell value, in our case "B1", followed by the plus operator, then the second cell value, which in our case in "B2" and close the round bracket ")". Press Enter and the result is calculated and displayed in cell B3.

Let us consider another example that includes the addition of much number of cells.
The problem statement here is "Grocery Shopping". Again let us consider the problem statements-list of items bought at the store, under column A and the corresponding values-cost of the items, under column B.

There are six items that were purchased and we need to determine the total cost of all the six items bought at the store. We need to display the resultant value in cell B7.

Click cell B7 and type in the "=" operator indicating it is a formula and define the SUM function. Open the round bracket "(" and type in the first cell reference value in our case is "B1" then type in the "is-to" operator ":" and then the cell reference value of the last product that is to be summed, in our case in "B6" and close the round bracket.

Our formula will now be like "=SUM(B1:B6)"

The ":" operator signifies that the cells from B1 to B6 all are to be included in the formula and added.

An important point to be noted is that addition can be carried out on only numeric values defined within the cell and not on any sort of Textual matter.
These are some of the simple tricks in carrying out mathematical functions in Ms-Excel.