There are a number of formulas built into Excel, like Sum. These formulas are called Functions. Below the Menu Bar (see right) you will see an

 Click on it.

A Paste Function Screen like the one below will appear. Read the information.

 

As you can see, there are all kinds of formulas (functions) that come with Excel (e.g. Statistical, Mathematical, Financial, etc.). We're going to use one of these to add the numbers again. Click-on the word All in the window under Function Category: On the right, under

Function Name you will see a list of all the functions in Excel. Click-on the down triangle until you come to SUM, click-on it. Notice the small box with a ? in the lower left corner of the Paste Function window. Click-on it.

 

The "Office Assistant" will appear (see image on right) and you can ask it questions (the little assistant may be a paper clip or just about anything). Click-on the blue dot to the left of Help with this feature. You will now see a help screen similar to the one below. When this screen appears, click-on the blue dot to the left of Help on the selected function (arrow below)

 

You will now see a Microsoft Excel Help window appear (similar to the one on the next page) that will show you how to use this SUM function, or any function. One of the really neat things about these Help windows is that there are examples for each function (see arrow on next page). Spend a few minutes looking at the SUM Help window and notice all of the features.

When you have reviewed all of the help you care to see, carefully click-on the X at the upper right corner of the blue bar to close the Microsoft Excel Help window (see arrow on next page). If you accidentally close the spreadsheet, simply reply yes to Save, and then re-open the spreadsheet as you did on page 10.

 

 

The Paste Function menu screen will again appear. click on OK. The following menu will appear.

If the Office Assistant is still on the screen simply point to it and click the RIGHT mouse button. A pop-up menu will appear. Click-on Hide. This will put the Assistant away until we need it again

As you can see, in the area to the right of Number 1, the "Wizard" has "guessed" that you want to add the numbers in the range C6 to C8. Now that you are becoming proficient with Excel, we’ll try something special. Carefully, point to some "plain" part in the gray area above. Click and hold down the left mouse button, and drag the above SUM box "away" so that you can see your numbers in C column cells. When you have done this, release the mouse button. Now click-on the "small box" on the right edge of the Number 1 area (see arrow above). It has a little red arrow in it.

The above window will appear. Delete anything that is in the window, and then, highlight cells C6 to C8 in the spreadsheet (click-on C6, hold down the left mouse button, and drag until the three cells are high-lighted.). A "marquee" will begin to flash around the cells, indicating they are highlighted. The cell will appear as above. Now click-on the small button on the right of the cell (see arrow above). The numbers will show in the area to the right of Number 1. Now, click-on OK. You’ll see that the SUM formula [=SUM(C6:C8)] is in Cell C9.