calculating percentages in excel spreadsheet for mac

Calculating Percentages In Excel Spreadsheet How To Use Excel

With this formula you can easily find out the final value by applying any amount of discount to any price.

If you directly multiply the price and the discount, then you got the discount value, not the price after discount.

When you apply the Percent Style format to a value that has already been entered in a cell, Excel multiplies the value by 100 and displays the result with a percent sign.

When you use this method, Excel assigns a Percent Style number format, divides the value by 100 (thats what makes it a percentage), and places the result in the cell (0.12 in this example).

Some may be calculated by a formula and returned to their cells as raw decimal values.

In such cases, you should add a Percent format to convert the calculated decimal values to percentages.

He is the author of all editions of Excel For Dummies, Excel All-in-One For Dummies, Excel Workbook For Dummies, and Windows For Dummies Quick Reference.

To give you an example, if you have a debt of 100, and youve already paid 50, then the proportion of the debt youve paid (and coincidentally still owe) is 50.

If youre struggling to calculate percentage increases or decreases on paper, Excel can do it for you.

Calculating Percentages In Excel Spreadsheet How To Use Excel

Heres how to use Excel to calculate percentage increases and decreases.

And perform other percentage calculations like percentages of a number.

Calculating Percentage Increases in Excel Percentage increases involve two numbers.

Using the sum of this figure, divide this remaining figure by the original number.

To give you an example, the cost of a household bill costs 100 in September, but 125 in October.

To calculate this difference, you could use the formula SUM(NEW-OLD)OLD or for this example, SUM(125-100)100 in Excel.

If your figures are in separate cells, you can replace numbers for cell references in your formula.

For example, if Septembers bill amount is in cell B4 and Octobers bill amount is in cell B5, your alternative Excel formula would be SUM(B5-B4)B4.

The percentage increase between September and October is 25, with this figure shown as a decimal number ( 0.25 ) by default in Excel using the formula above.

If you want to display this figure as a percentage in Excel, youll need to replace the formatting for your cell.

Select your cell, then click the Percentage Style button in the Home tab, under the Number category.

You can also right-click your cell, click Format Cells, then select Percentages from the Category Number menu to achieve the same effect.

Calculating Percentage Decreases in Excel To calculate the percentage decrease between two numbers, youll use an identical calculation to the percentage increase.

You subtract the second number from the first, then divide it by the first number.

The only difference is that the first number will be smaller than the second number.

Continuing the above example, if a household bill is 125 in October, but it returns to 100 in November, you would use the formula SUM(NEW-OLD)OLD or in this example, SUM(100-125)125.

Using cell references, if Octobers bill amount of 125 is in cell B4 and Novembers bill amount of 100 is in cell B5, your Excel formula for a percentage decrease would be SUM(B5-B4)B4.

Excel displays this as a negative decimal number ( -0.2 ) in cells B7 and B8 above.

Calculating a Percentage as a Proportion Excel can also help you calculate a percentage as a proportion.

This is the difference between one number, as your complete figure, and a smaller number.

This requires an even simpler mathematical calculation than a percentage change.

Calculating Percentages In Excel Spreadsheet For Mac