Using operators in formulas
Excel lets you use a variety of operators in your formulas. Operators are symbols that indicate the type of mathematical operation you want the formula to perform. Table shown below lists the operators that Excel recognizes. In addition to these, Excel has many built-in functions that enable you to perform additional calculations.
Operators Used in Formulas
| Operators | Name |
| + | Additional |
| - | Subtraction |
| * | Multiplication |
| / | Division |
| ^ | Exponentiation |
| & | Concatenation |
| = | Logical comparison (equal to) |
| > | Logical comparison (greater than) |
| < | Logical comparison (less than) |
| >= | Logical comparison (greater than or equal to) |
| <= | Logical comparison (less than or equal to) |
| < > | Logical comparison (not equal to) |
You can, of course, use as many operators as you need to perform the desired calculation.
Following are some examples of formulas that use various operators.
| Formula | What It Does |
| ="Part-"&"23A" | Joins (concatenates) the two text strings to produce Part-23A. |
| =A1&A2 | Concatenates the contents of cell A1 with cell A2. Concatenation works with values as well as text. If cell A1 contains 123 and cell A2 contains 456, this formula would return the value 123456 |
| =6^3 | Raises 6 to the third power (216). |
| =216^(1/3) | Returns the cube root of 216 (6). |
| =A1<A2 | Returns TRUE if the value in cell A1 is less than the value in cell A2. Otherwise, it returns FALSE. Logical-comparison operators also work with text. If A1 contained Bill and A2 contained Julia, the formula would return TRUE, because Bill comes before Julia in alphabetical order. |
| =A1<=A2 | Returns TRUE if the value in cell A1 is less than or equal to the value in cell A2. Otherwise, it returns FALSE. |
| =A1<>A2 | Returns TRUE if the value in cell A1 is not equal to the value in cell A2. Otherwise, it returns FALSE. |