Formula Friday - IF

One of the formulas I tend to use quite often in Excel is the "IF" formula.  The "IF" formula can be very helpful when trying to sort out your data.  The "IF" formula is very flexible as it lets you put in an argument to test and lets you determine what result is shown if the argument is true or false.  In this post I am going to give an example of a simple "IF" formula.  In the future I will give an example of using an "IF" formula, combined with other logical formula(s) to show what great things can be done with "IF"!

To use this formula:

-Click on the cell where you want to see the logical test results

-Enter =IF([logical test],[true value to display],[false value to display])

-Note: If you want to use a value as your true or false result, you will need to put "" around the value, i.e. "blue"

-Press Enter

-Now you will see the result

Example:

-In this example I have a list of individuals who have donated money to a charity.  I want to break the list down into 2 groups based on the dollar amount given.  Those individuals who gave more $100 will be in the Elite group.  The individuals who gave $100 or less will be in the Standard group.

 

-Click on Cell G2

-In cell G2, enter =IF(F2>100,"Elite","Standard")

 

1. In this case I am looking at the value in column F to determine which group the individual belongs in, so I use column F in my logical test.  I am using F2>100, because anything where the value in column F is greater than 100, I want column G to show Elite.

2. If my statement is true (the value in F is greater than 100), then the cell in column G will return "Elite"

3. If my statement is false (the value in F is less than or equal to 100), then the cell in column G will return "Standard"

-Press Enter

-Now I see the result of "Elite" in cell G2 since the Contribution amount in cell F2 was greater than 100

 

-To finish this example, I want to copy the formula to the remainder of the contributors to figure out the groupings.  Therefore, I need to copy this formula down to cells G3 through G10.

-Copy cell G2

-Highlight cells G3 through G10

-Paste the formula

-Now each of these cells will have the same formula and will display the result in each cell

-Cells with formulas

 

-Results

 

Excel ya later!