Spreadsheets for Real Life

About the book

You type numbers and words into boxes, tell the grid how some boxes relate to others, and it keeps every total, average and count up to date while you get on with your life.

A spreadsheet is a grid that does arithmetic for you. This short book teaches the dozen things that do most of the work, using examples from ordinary life: a shopping list, household bills, a spending log, a contact list.

It ends with a monthly budget that adds itself up. Everything works in both Google Sheets and Excel, and where the menus differ, the book shows both. Every example total was recalculated before publication.

What you'll be able to do

• Move around rows, columns and cells without getting lost
• Write formulas and copy them without breaking references
• Use SUM, AVERAGE, COUNT, MIN and MAX with confidence
• Let the sheet decide with IF, SUMIF and COUNTIF
• Look up any value with XLOOKUP

What's inside

1. —Before you start
2. 01Rows, columns and cells
3. 02Your first formula
4. 03Copy formulas without breaking them
5. 04Five functions that do most of the work
6. 05Let the sheet decide: IF, SUMIF, COUNTIF
7. 06Look things up with XLOOKUP
8. 07Make it readable
9. 08Project: a budget that adds itself up
10. AFormula cheat sheet and error messages

A taste of the book

Chapter 5: total one category
=SUMIF($C$2:$C$7, F2, $D$2:$D$7)    → 124.45

Chapter 5: two conditions at once
=SUMIFS(D2:D7, C2:C7, "Food", D2:D7, ">30")    → 95.95