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SESSION

13

Programming with

Excel’s Built-In Functions

Session Checklist

✔ Using Excel functions in VBA code
✔ Excel function overview
✔ The WorksheetFunction object

xcel’s calculation abilities go well beyond the custom formulas you learned about in
the previous session. You also have access to a library of predefined functions to use
E in your worksheet calculations.

Excel’s Built-in Functions
Excel provides a complete library of functions that you can use in a worksheet. Each func-
tion performs a commonly needed (or, in some cases, not-so-commonly-needed) calculation.
Rather than figuring out the details yourself — for example, to calculate payment on a loan
or depreciation for tax purposes — you can just plug in the appropriate function. You must
know which function to use, of course, and later in this session you’ll learn the details of
some of the more commonly used ones.
When you work directly in Excel, you access functions using the function bar. When you
click the fx button, the Insert Function dialog box is displayed as shown in Figure 13-1. In
this dialog box you can select functions alphabetically or by category, and view a brief
description of the selected function below the function list. Using this dialog box is a good
way for you to gain some familiarity with the functions in Excel.