Formula Crib Sheet in Excel

Q. When I’m working in Excel, I sometimes have trouble remembering a formula. Is there an instant crib sheet I can refer to? I know I can look it up in Help , but that’s such a slow process.

A. Yes, there is a very handy tool that will provide an instant menu of formulas. While in Excel, click on Insert, Function. That brings up this screen:

Notice your choices: You can either describe what you’re looking for under Search for a function or you can click on the general category under Or select a category and you’ll get every applicable formula.

But if you just need to do a quick, fundamental analysis on a range of cells, like a count or a sum or an average, there is an even faster way—a one-click operation with Excel’s nifty statistics tray.

Here’s how: Select a range of cells and right-click anywhere on Excel’s status bar—that’s the horizontal bar at the bottom of the window that displays the word Ready at its left edge. That will evoke a function menu which includes the following statistical calculations: Average, Count, Count Nums, Max, Min, Sum. Select any of the functions and Excel will display the answer dynamically right on the horizontal bar. It’s that easy.