What Do Parentheses Mean In Excel?
It is always a good habit to use the parentheses in Excel formulas even if they are not compulsory for a formula as them make it look good and more understandable.
We can put parentheses within parentheses and the rule works like the inner most parentheses are calculated first and then the outer ones.
When you enter brackets you will notice that Excel tries to help you by making the matching parentheses bold as you pass over it with the mouse.
There must be a balance of parentheses as sometimes while creating a formula we enter the starting brackets and at the end we might lose count and forgot to enter the ending parentheses but in that case the Excel will prompt you with an error and it will be easy to know the issue. Excel will make a suggestion as to what it thinks the formula should be. You can accept the recommendation or press “No” to edit the formula yourself.
First think you need to remember is default order of calculations in mathematics:
- Parentheses
- Exponents
- Division and multiplication
- Addition and subtraction
As you can see putting brackets is changing the order of calculations and can change results.
The below are some of the examples we can use to learn the use of brackets:
= 10 + (10*2) result: 30
If there were no parenthesis the result can be different.
Now the inner bracket is calculated first and then the addition.
=((5*2) + (4 *2) )+ 2 = (10+8) + 2 = 20
How will it look without the use of parentheses:
= 5*2+4*2+2
Which is very confusing to look at.
Let us look at some more examples for more clarification:
I hope you like such math fun calculations in Excel. Like you see brackets changes a lot. So don’t be confused.
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Further reading: Basic concepts Getting started with Excel Cell References
