Percentage formulas

Hi Lilya,

Thank you for your post and welcome to the forum, in reply to your post;

If you've two figures on your Excel spreadsheet and you need to know one figure as a percentage of another, you need a formula.

1. Select a new cell and type an 'equals' sign into it.

Excel's now expecting you to build a formula in that cell by selecting other cells in the spreadsheet or typing in values. You're going to divide your two numbers, one by the other, so simply:

2. Select the cell with your first figure in it with a mouse click.
Type a * and then 100 - to multiply your first figure by 100
3. Type a / to tell Excel that you're dividing the result of (2) by your second figure ...
4. Select the cell with your second figure in it and press the 'Enter' key to move on --
The cell should now display one of those figures as a percentage of the other.

If you left the *100 component out of that process, simply format the cell itself to display its contents as a percentage - use Excel's 'Format/cell' menu for this.

You're finished, but look at the result to check that it makes sense - you may have done the calculation 'Upside down' in which case start again but reverse the order of the two figures ...


I hope that has helped, regards Pete