Concept: Formulas and Formula Bar Actions

To edit cells, you can select a cell and click inside the formula bar, or double-click a cell and edit the data directly in the cell. We recommend using the formula bar as the main data entry area.

Action/Feature	Notes
View reference information for all available formulas	Click the Function icon (fx) to open the Functions Library panel.
Enter a formula	You can: Double-click in a cell and type the formula into the cell, starting with = (the equals character). Place the cursor in the formula bar and start typing the formula. When you type a function name that Worksheets recognizes, a function description displays; when you start typing parameters, syntax information displays. From the Functions panel, find the function you want and then click the + to its left to insert it into the formula bar. Click the Formula Editor icon to open the interactive formula editor, and enter your formula. Any existing content in the formula bar displays in the editor. Important note: The editor icon doesn't display when a live data formula is in the formula bar and the formula has an active connection to the Data Wizard, or when the active cell is in a pivot table. The formula editor doesn't support constrained array formulas. To make Worksheets handle the content of the cell as text instead of a formula, type a ' (single quote character) before the = character; everything after the ' is treated as plain text. The ' character doesn't display in the cell but it displays in the formula bar.
Select a range to enter into a formula	When entering a formula argument, you can click a cell or range of cells to insert its address into the formula. Then type the next character for the formula, which is usually a colon when entering a range reference, or a comma when separating arguments. For example, for =SUM(A1:C5) you can drag the selection to automatically include the range from A1 to C5 in the formula. If the cell you want to insert in a formula is on another sheet, click the tab for that sheet, click the cell in that sheet, then navigate back to the original sheet. When you use the auto-fill feature in the formula bar, Worksheets automatically adds references from different workbook sheets into the formula. However, the formula bar doesn't support opening two workbooks in separate browser tabs and auto-filling external references.
Submit (run) a formula from the formula bar or the cell containing the formula	If you expect the formula to return a single value, press Enter to run the formula. If you expect the formula to return multiple values (it's an array formula), use the appropriate keyboard shortcut: For an unconstrained array formula (Worksheets dynamically determines the output range), press Ctrl+Alt+Enter (Windows) or Command+Option+Enter (Mac). For a constrained array formula (you select the output range), press Ctrl+Shift+Enter (Windows) or Command+Shift+Enter (Mac).
Submit (run) a formula from the formula editor	When you open the formula editor for a formula, the editor detects if the formula is a standard scalar (single value, non-array) formula or unconstrained array formula, and submits it appropriately when you click Save & Close. The formula editor doesn't support constrained array formulas. If you select Save & Close without using Evaluate first, the Evaluate action runs before closing the panel. When you close the editor panel, the formula displays again in the formula bar as a single line.
Enter numbers into a formula	You can enter numbers in several formats, such as: A standard format such as 123, -4.5, 27.0001. Scientific format, such as 1E10, 12.4e-4, 8.2E+34. Accounting format for negative numbers, such as (12.45), (12E2). Formatted with thousands separators, such as 12,234.6789. Formatted as a percentage, such as 12.3%, -.23E3%. Formatted as a currency, such as $12.45, $50, $34.33, ($1,456.99), ($12). Dates and times. The sheet might not display the number exactly as it was typed, depending on the current cell's formatting rules and other factors, but the value is preserved. To make Worksheets handle the format of the cell as text, type a ' (single quote character) before the = character; everything after the ' is treated as plain text. The ' character doesn't display in the cell but it displays in the formula bar. This is especially useful when you are entering dates and you want to preserve the formatting you typed instead of displaying it in a format such as DD/MM/YYYY.