Excel 2019 Bible

Part II: Working with Formulas and Functions

Symbol Operator Precedence

+ Addition 3

• Subtraction 3
  & Concatenation 4
  = Equal to 5
  < Less than 5

  
  

  Greater than 5

  
  

  
  

You can use parentheses to override Excel’s built-in order of precedence. Expressions within

parentheses are always evaluated first. For example, the following formula uses parentheses

to control the order in which the calculations occur. In this case, cell B3 is subtracted from

cell B2, and the result is multiplied by cell B4:

=(B2-B3)*B4

If you enter the formula without the parentheses, Excel computes a different answer.

Because multiplication has a higher precedence, cell B3 is multiplied by cell B4. This result

is then subtracted from cell B2, which isn’t what was intended.

The formula without parentheses looks like this:

=B2-B3*B4

It’s good practice to use parentheses even when they aren’t strictly necessary. Doing so helps to clarify what the

formula is intended to do. For example, the following formula makes it perfectly clear that B3 should be multiplied

by B4 and the result subtracted from cell B2. Without the parentheses, you would need to remember Excel’s order of

precedence.

=B2-(B3*B4)

You can also nest parentheses within formulas—that is, put them inside other parentheses.

If you do so, Excel evaluates the most deeply nested expressions first—and then works its

way out. Here’s an example of a formula that uses nested parentheses:

=((B2*C2)+(B3*C3)+(B4*C4))*B6

This formula has four sets of parentheses—three sets are nested inside the fourth set.

Excel evaluates each nested set of parentheses and then sums the three results. This result

is then multiplied by the value in cell B6.

TABLE 9.2 (continued)