Arithmetical operators

You can use formulas to add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers. You should use the following standard arithmetic operators in your formulas:

/

division

*

multiplication

+

addition

-

subtraction

Note: These arithmetic operators are listed in the natural order of priority, from highest (calculated first) to lowest (calculated last). You can use parentheses to group information and to control the order of calculation.

In addition, you can use these logical operators:

%

The percentage sign simply divides a number by 100. For example, 25% means 0.25.

( )

Parentheses group parts of a formula and also control the order in which calculations are performed. For example, A2 * (B3 + C4) tells Spreadsheet to add B3 and C4 first, and then multiply the result by A2. Without the brackets, Ability would multiply A2 by B3 before adding C4.

^

The caret raises a number to a power (exponentiation). For example, 3^2 raises 3 to the power of 2, or squares it. You can also raise numbers to fractional and negative values. For example, 3^0.5 or 3^(1/2) finds the square root of 3 and 10^-2 gives the result of 1/(10*10), which is 0.01.

Ability will automatically strip excess brackets from a formula to display it in its simplest form.

See:

Relational operators

Logical operators

Priority of evaluation of operators

What is a formula?