How To Use Formula To Add Cells In Excel

In this article, I will tell you how to use formulas to add cells in Excel. The cells can be a column of cells, a row of cells, or a cell range. The formulas can use the basic cell reference or the Excel SUM function to add cell values efficiently.

1. Use Basic Formula To Add Cells In Excel.

1. Below is the example cell column. Column A contains the numbers from 1 to 10, and we want to add the cells up using a formula.
   
2. You can input the formula =A1+A2+A3+A4+A5+A6+A7+A8+A9+A10 in a cell such as B1 manually, and press the enter key.
3. Then it will display the number 55 in cell B1.
4. If you find the above method is complicated, you can select cell B1 and input the text =.
5. Then select cell A1 and press the + key, and select cell A2 and press the + key, do this action repeatedly until cell A10.
6. Then it will add the formula =A1+A2+A3+A4+A5+A6+A7+A8+A9+A10 in cell B1.
7. If the above data is saved in a row, then the method is similar.
8. The above method is useful when there are not too many cells in the formula and the cells are not continuous.
9. But if there are thousands of cells to add, how can we do it?

2. Use the Excel SUM Function In Formula To Add Cells.

1. If thousands of cells need to be added, you can use the SUM function in the Excel formula to do it.
2. You can pass the cell range ( such as A1:C10 ) as the parameter to the SUM function.
3. Then the function SUM will add all the number values in the cell range A1:C10.
4. If the cell in the range contains no number value, the SUM function will ignore the value.
5. We change the example data cell to below, the cell A6 contains the text hello which is not a number.
   
6. Then input the formula =SUM(A1:A10) in cell B1 and press the enter key, it still shows the number 55 in cell B1.
7. The Excel SUM function can also accept multiple cell ranges as the parameters, for example, SUM(cell_range1, cell_range2).
8. Then it will add up all the cell ranges number values together and return the result.
9. Now we add some numbers in row 1 as below.
   
10. We input the formula =SUM(A1:A11, C1:G1) in cell B1 and press the enter key.
11. Then you can see the number 107 in cell B1.
12. The SUM function ignores both cell A6 ( contains a text value ) and cell E1 ( contains a date value ).