In the 7th session of Chandoo.org podcast, lets make you aweSUM().
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What is in this session?
Imagine for a second that Excel cannot add up numbers. And no it cant subtract them either. What would that look like?
A glorified Notepad. That’s right. Excel’s ability to add up numbers, along with features like formulas, charts, pivot tables & BHATTEXT() are what make it such a lovely software. May be not the BHATTEXT(), but we all agree that Excel is so versatile and useful because it can add up numbers (and perform other calculations) with ease.
But how well do you know the SUM formulas of Excel?
In this podcast, you will learn,
- Special personal fruit announcement 😛
- + operator
- Status bar & total rows in tables
- Auto Sum feature
- SUM() function
- SUMIFS function
- When to use it
- Examples
- Special cases of SUMIFS function
- Sum of all positive numbers
- Sum of all numbers for March 2014
- Sum of all customers with name = taco bell
- SUBTOTAL & AGGREGATE functions
- Other summing functions
- SUMIF
- SUMPRODUCT
- DSUM
- Conclusions
Go ahead and listen to the show
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Links & Resources mentioned in this session:
Resources to learn SUM functions
- Functions
- Excel Tables
- Examples
Transcript of this session:
Download this podcast transcript [PDF]
How awesome are your SUM skills?
SUM formulas are corner stone of any dashboard or report or meaningful model. So it no surprise that I use them often. My favorite sum formula is SUMIFS(). It is versatile and powerful. I am learning to love DSUM() too. I will share details about it in an upcoming article.
Meanwhile, tell me what is your favorite SUM formula? What are the tricks and techniques you use when writing SUM formulas? Please share your thoughts using comments.
11 Responses to “Fix Incorrect Percentages with this Paste-Special Trick”
I've just taught yesterday to a colleague of mine how to convert amounts in local currency into another by pasting special the ROE.
great thing to know !!!
Chandoo - this is such a great trick and helps save time. If you don't use this shortcut, you have to take can create a formula where =(ref cell /100), copy that all the way down, covert it to a percentage and then copy/paste values to the original column. This does it all much faster. Nice job!
I was just asking peers yesterday if anyone know if an easy way to do this, I've been editing each cell and adding a % manually vs setting the cell to Percentage for months and just finally reached my wits end. What perfect timing! Thanks, great tip!
If it's just appearance you care about, another alternative is to use this custom number format:
0"%"
By adding the percent sign in quotes, it gets treated as text and won't do what you warned about here: "You can not just format the cells to % format either, excel shows 23 as 2300% then."
Dear Jon S. You are the reason I love the internet. 3 year old comments making my life easier.
Thank you.
Here is a quicker protocol.
Enter 10000% into the extra cell, copy this cell, select the range you need to convert to percentages, and use paste special > divide. Since the Paste > All option is selected, it not only divides by 10000% (i.e. 100), it also applies the % format to the cells being pasted on.
@Martin: That is another very good use of Divide / Multiply operations.
@Tony, @Jody: Thank you 🙂
@Jon S: Good one...
@Jon... now why didnt I think of that.. Excellent
Thank You so much. it is really helped me.
Big help...Thanks
Thanks. That really saved me a lot of time!
Is Show Formulas is turned on in the Formula Ribbon, it will stay in decimal form until that is turned off. Drove me batty for an hour until I just figured it out.