Writing formulas in Microsoft Excel is as simple or complicated as you make it. If you’re not very strong in math then you might write simple formulas. If you’re very good with numbers then you will write more sophisticated formulas. Either way, Microsoft Excel is a very powerful program suited to either of your needs.

In its simplest form, Excel can be used to create basic formulas—add two numbers together, for example. The formula =2+3 adds the numbers 2 and 3. The cell in which the formula is defined shows the answer, 5.

But what if you work with a lot of numbers, or with numbers that change frequently? You would instead write a formula that includes cell references. Type a number in one cell (cell A1), type a second number in a different cell (cell A2) and then write a formula that adds cell A1 and cell A2. It doesn’t matter what numbers appear in these cells, or how frequently they change. The formula will adjust the answer depending on whichever numbers are fed into it.

Excel comes equipped with a number of pre-defined formulas, called functions, that simply the formula-writing process. Functions are very common formulas, like adding a range of numbers. Why write a formula if Excel has a function that does the same thing?

Say, for example, that you want to find the average of 12 numbers written in 12 different cells. You could write the following formula:

=sum(B1+B2+B3+B4+B5+B6+B7+B8+B9+B10+B11+b12)/12

or you could create a cell range to include these 12 cells and then select the Average function. Quick. Simple. And you get the same answer.

Excel has many different functions. The best way to become familiar with them is to display the Insert Function dialog box. You can type a description of what you want the function to do, or you could browse through a list of functions in any of twelve categories. Find the function you want and select it.

Now, of course, if you work with numbers a lot and are pretty good at writing mathematical equations, then you will want to write more sophisticated formulas that meet your special needs. This is not a problem in Excel. If you can say what you want to do in a sentence then you can write a formula to do it in Excel.

Check out Creating Simple Formulas in Excel and Creating Complex Formulas in Excel for more.