AS Level Spreadsheet Practical

MID Function

The Excel MID function extracts a given number of characters from the middle of a supplied text string.
For example, =MID("apple",2,3) returns "ppl".

LEFT Function

The Excel LEFT function extracts a given number of characters from the left side of a supplied text string.
For example, LEFT("apple",3) returns "app".
 FIND Function

At the core, this formula is extracting characters starting from the left, and using the FIND function to
figure out how many characters to extract.

First, FIND looks for the "@" character inside the email address "[email protected]". The "@"
character is the 7th character so FIND returns 7. The number 1 is then subtracted from 7 to yield 6. This
is done to prevent the formula from extracting the "@" along with the name. The LEFT function then
extracts 6 characters from the email address, starting from the left. So

Create email address with name and domain

 VALUE Function

The Excel VALUE function converts text that appears in a recognized format (i.e. a number, date, or time
format) into a numeric value.

INT Function

The Excel INT function returns the integer part of a decimal number by rounding down to the integer.
Note the INT function rounds down, so negative numbers become more negative.
 ROUND Function

The Excel ROUND function returns a number rounded to a given number of digits. The ROUND function
can round to the right or left of the decimal point.

ROUNDUP Function

The Excel ROUNDUP function returns a number rounded up to a given number of decimal places. Unlike
standard rounding, where numbers less than 5 are rounded down, ROUNDUP always rounds numbers 1-
9 up.

Try – Rounddown()
 CONCATENATE Function

The Excel CONCATENATE function concatenates (joins) join up to 30 text items together and returns the
result as text.

TEXT Function

The Excel TEXT function returns a number in a specified number format, as text. You can use the TEXT
function to embed formatted numbers inside text.

More example on Text()–

Date format codes-

Assuming a date of January 9, 2012, here is a more complete set of formatting codes for date, along
with sample output.

Format code Output

d 9
dd 09
ddd Mon
dddd Monday
m 1
mm 01
mmm Jan
mmmm January
mmmmm J
yy 12
yyyy 2012
mm/dd/yyyy 01/09/2012
m/d/y 1/9/12
ddd, mmm d Mon, Jan 9
mm/dd/yyyy h:mm AM/PM 01/09/2012 5:15 PM
dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm:ss 09/01/2012 17:15:00
 DATE Function

The Excel DATE function creates a valid date from individual year, month, and day components. The
DATE function is useful for assembling dates that need to change dynamically based on other values in a
worksheet.

• Excel dates begin in the year 1900. If year is between zero and 1900, Excel will add 1900 to the
year.

• Month can be greater than 12 and less than zero. If month is greater than 12, Excel will
add month to the first month in the specified year. If month is less than or equal to zero, Excel
will subtract the absolute value of month plus 1 from the first month of the given year.

• Day values can be positive or negative. If day is greater than the days in the given month, Excel
will add day to the first day of the specified month. If day is less than or equal to zero, Excel will
subtract the absolute value of day plus 1 from the first day of the specified month.

EDATE Function

=EDATE(start_date, months)

The function requires 2 arguments: ‘start_date’ and ‘months’.

The first, ‘start_date’, is simply the date we are adding months to.

The second, ‘months’, is the number of months we would like to add to the date.
 How to add years to a date

=DATE(year, month, day)

These functions extract the correct data from our original date. This ensures appropriate use of our final
DATE formula.

if we want to add 1 year to the date, we simply place a ‘+1’ after the YEAR function in the ‘year’
argument of the DATE function.

YEARFRAC Function

The Excel YEARFRAC function returns a decimal value that represents fractional years between two
dates. You can use YEARFRAC to do things like calculate age with a birthdate.
 DAYS365 Function

The Excel DAYS360 function returns the number of days between two dates based on a 360-day year.
Calculations based on a 360-day year comes from certain accounting calculations where all 12 months
are considered to have 30 days.

DATEIF Function

The Excel DATEDIF function returns the difference between two date values in years, months, or days.
 LEN Function

The Excel LEN function returns the length of a given text string as the number of characters. LEN will also
count characters in numbers, but number formatting is not included.

DATA VALIDATION

Data validation is a feature in Excel used to control what a user can enter into a cell. For example, you
could use data validation to make sure a value is a number between 1 and 6, make sure a date occurs in
the next 30 days, or make sure a text entry is less than 25 characters.

Data validation can also stop invalid user input. For example, if a product code fails validation, you can
display a message like this:
In addition, data validation can be used to present the user with a predefined
choice in a dropdown menu:

Dropdown can be -

1. A simple drop down menu

2. An absolute cell references
3. A named range
 INDEX Function

The Excel INDEX function returns the value at a given position in a range or array. You can use

index to retrieve individual values or entire rows and columns. INDEX is often used with the

MATCH function, where MATCH locates and feeds a position to INDEX.

Get a value in a list or table based on location.

• array - A range of cells, or an array constant.

• row_num - The row position in the reference or array.

• col_num - [optional] The column position in the reference or array.

• area_num - [optional] The range in reference that should be used.

 MATCH Function

MATCH is an Excel function used to locate the position of a lookup value in a row, column, or

table.

• lookup_value - The value to match in lookup_array.

• lookup_array - A range of cells or an array reference.

• match_type - [optional] How to match, specified as -1, 0, or 1. Default is 1.

 WILDCARD MATCH

• Match is not case-sensitive.

• Match returns the #N/A error if no match is found.

• The argument lookup_array must be placed in descending order: TRUE, FALSE, Z-A,...2, 1, 0, -1,
-2,..., and so on.

• If match_type is 0 and lookup_value is text, the wildcard characters question mark (?) and
asterisk (*) can be used in lookup_value.

• If match_type is 0 and lookup_value is text, lookup_value can contain the wildcard characters
asterisk (*) and question mark (?). An asterisk matches any sequence of characters; a question
mark matches any single character.