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78 Part II: Using Formulas and Functions
Although it’s possible to build formulas that deal with text, the one in cell C7 is
not one of them. When you enter ten percent as a text entry in cell B7, its for-
mula essentially chokes, returning the #VALUE! error value to the cell.
5. Use Undo to restore the original 10% value to cell and then press Ctrl+~ (tilde) to
display the formulas in the cells of the worksheet.
Remember that you can always use the Ctrl+~ (tilde) key combination to display
the formulas in your spreadsheet in their cells in the worksheet (very valuable
for verifying its functioning). Check the contents of your formulas against those
shown in Figure 5-1.
6. Press Ctrl+~ again to return the worksheet to its normal display wherein all for-
mulas display their results in the worksheet and their contents on the Formula
bar when the cell cursor is in their cells.

Figure 5-1:
Practice
Formulas.xls
with all its
formulas
displayed in
their cells.

Building formulas with built-in functions

Excel offers you a wide assortment of built-in functions that can save valuable time in
creating the formulas needed in your spreadsheet. In place of the operands and oper-
ators of your handmade formulas, built-in functions use function names and argu-
ments. All the Excel functions follow the general syntax of the SUM function, the most
widely used spreadsheet function:

=SUM(number1,number2, . . .)

Note the following about this syntax in this example:
The function name is always shown in all caps because Excel automatically dis-
plays it that way on the Formula bar regardless of what case you use in entering