I don’t remember the last time I used a calculator. In fact, I don’t even think I own one! That’s because I always use Excel to perform my calculations, and you can do the same.

Why Using Excel Is Better Than Using a Calculator

Admittedly, using Excel to perform calculations isn’t for everyone—engineers, scientists, mechanics, or anyone else whose work is primarily away from a computer will, of course, still benefit from having a calculator to hand. However, if, like me, you do most of your work at your desk, using Microsoft Excel is the way forward.

Here’s why:

• An Excel spreadsheet is a digital sheet of paper—you can create your calculations wherever you want without wiping any previous calculations you performed.
• The keys on a standard computer keyboard are usually larger than the keys on a calculator, reducing your chances of accidentally hitting the wrong number or symbol.
• Excel lets you perform more complex calculations, like calculating the number of days between two dates.
• You can easily repeat calculations you have already executed within your Excel sheet using copy and paste. This is especially useful if you’ve taken the time to concoct a lengthy calculation.
• It’s easy to review and troubleshoot the steps you took to produce an outcome by looking in the formula bar at the top of your Excel window.
• Turn what was initially a doodle calculation into a fully-fledged worksheet by formatting the data into tables or adding charts to visualize your sums.

How to Use Excel as a Calculator

Regardless of the type of calculation you want to perform, all calculations in Excel start with the equal (=) symbol. Here are more details about how you can use Excel to replicate the different types of calculations.

Creating Basic Numerical Calculations

Excel can perform exactly the same types of simple calculations that you would tap into a calculator. For example, typing:

=4+5+10

into a cell and pressing Enter results in the cell displaying 19, while the formula bar shows what I typed when I select that cell.

You can also follow the same principle when adding (+), subtracting (-), multiplying (*), and dividing (/). For example, typing:

=20/5

and pressing Enter returns 4.

Excel mostly follows the same order of operations as most calculators, with a few additional operators added to cater to Excel’s advanced tools and capabilities. If the program encounters operators with the same precedence (for example, if a formula contains multiplication and division), it deals with the operators from left to right. Here’s the full order:

1. Reference operators (like colons, spaces, and commas)
2. Negation (such as -1)
3. Percentages
4. Exponents (also known as powers)
5. Multiplication and division
6. Addition and subtraction
7. Concatenation (connecting strings of text)
8. Comparison (like greater than, more than, and so on)

Add parentheses to Excel calculations to dictate the order of operations more closely. For example, =6+9*4 will yield a different result to =(6+9)*4 because, in the first example, the multiplication is performed before the addition, while in the second example, the addition is performed before the multiplication.

So, for example, typing:

=(20*2)+(6/3)

and pressing Enter returns 42.

Creating Cell Reference Calculations

As well as using numbers to create calculations, you can also use Excel’s cell references.

In the example below, to multiply the value in cell A1 by the value in cell B1, I will type an equal sign, select cell A1, type an asterisk (*), select cell B1, and press Enter.

=A1*B1

To make things even easier, Excel has an AutoSum capability that saves you from having to select the cells you want to include in your calculation. In this example, I want Excel to tell me the average of the values in column A. To do this, I will select the cell immediately underneath the final value, click the “AutoSum” drop-down arrow in the Home tab on the ribbon, and click “Average.”

Once I’ve checked that the selected cells are the correct ones for my calculation, I can press Enter. If I need to select different cells, I can click and drag the handles in the corners of the dotted area.

Creating Scientific Calculations

Excel is also capable of performing more complex calculations, and you’re not restricted to the options in the AutoSum drop-down menu. Click “More Functions” if you want to create the types of calculations you might perform on a scientific calculator.

Alternatively, use this list as a starting point for typing calculations manually:

Excel also offers trigonometric functions like SIN, COS, TAN, COT, COSH, and COTH, as well as inverse trigonometric functions like ASIN, ASINH, ATAN, and ATANH. Just remember to type = before you decide which one you’re going to use.

You can also calculate standard deviation in Excel by typing:

=STDEV

and clicking the type of standard deviation you want to use.

Finally, to calculate the logarithm of a number to a specified base, type

=LOG(x,y)

where x is the number for which you want the logarithm, and y is the base. If you omit argument y, Excel assumes the base to be 10.

Don’t stop at numerical, reference, and scientific calculations. In fact, Excel has over 450 different functions that you can use to perform wide-ranging calculations on your data, so place your calculator to one side and make the most of this powerful program’s capabilities.