Useful formulas for use in MS Excel

1. Dividing two numbers to get the product in pounds, shillings and pence
2. Separating two strings bounded by a comma
3. Using conditional statements
4. Counting within a list delimited by sequential numbers

1. Dividing two numbers to get the product in pounds, shillings and pence

A B C D E F G
1 Persons Houses RV
2 St. Marylebone 161860 16357 1053748
3 St. Pancras 198788 21852 925872
4 St. George's, Hanover Square 87771 10437 1076722
5 Islington 155341 20704 777632

To get the rateable value (RV) per person in pounds and shillings and pence, use
the following three formulae in cells E2, F2, and G2:

E2: =SUM(INT(D2/B2))

F2: =INT(SUM((D2/B2)-E2)*240/12)

G2: =INT(SUM(((D2/B2)-E2-(F2/240*12)))*240)

The formula for cell E2 gives the product of the division between the rateable
value rounded down (using the function INT) to the nearest whole number. The
formula in cell F2 takes the remainder of the previous sum, converts it to pennies,
by multiplying by 240 and then divides by 12 to get shillings. Again an integer is
given, rounding the whole number down. The formula in G2 repeats the
calculations in F2 leaving a fraction of a pound which when multiplied by 240 gives
the number of pence.
2. Separating two strings bounded by a comma

A B C
NAME
1 Davies, Peter
2 Davis, Hezekiah

To separate the two elements of this variable use the following formulae in cells
B1 and C1:

B1: =LEFT(A1, FIND(",",A1)-1)

C1: =RIGHT(A1,(LEN(A1)-FIND(",",A1)-1))

The LEFT and RIGHT functions are used to truncate a string, starting either from
the left of that string or the right. The form is LEFT(string, number) where string is
the cell you are interested in and number is the number of characters you want to
take from that string. Thus =LEFT(shillings, 1) returns “s”. The second function
used here is FIND. This function “finds” the character given in its first argument in
the string given in its second argument. Thus =FIND(s, pounds) will return the
number 6. Note that the FIND function only returns the character position of the
first occurrence of that character.

The first of these formulae then first finds the position of the comma in the string.
(In the first case this is position 7. Then it truncates, from the left, a total of 6
characters (7 minus 1). This is necessary here because we don’t want the comma
to appear in our result.

The second of these formulae first finds the total length of the string, using the
LEN function. Then finds the position of the comma. The latter number is
subtracted from the first finding the length of the string after the comma. Because
there is a space after the comma in both examples we remove one fewer
character. The resulting number is used as part of the RIGHT function which takes
the number of characters in its second argument from the right hand side of the
first argument.
3. Using conditional statements

Excel allows one to perform rudimentary conditional statements. Consider the

census enumerators’ books where originally data relating to sex was denoted by
being placed in the age columns:

A B C D E F
AGE_M AGE_F
1 Frederick Skipper Head
2 Florence Wife 43
3 Violet Skipper Daughter 12
4 Ethel Skipper Daughter 11
5 Michael Skipper Son 4

Here we know that Frederick Skipper is male because his age is recorded in the
Male column. Suppose that we wanted to add a column which gave the sex of each
of these people, we would use the IF function. In cell G1 we would use the
following formula: =IF(E1>0,"M","F"). This is saying that if the contents of the cell
E1 (which is the male age) is greater than 0 then this person is a male and return
the string “M”, otherwise (i.e., if the contents of E1 is less than 0 or missing) then
return the string “F”. This is not entirely foolproof, because if the contents of the
column for AGE_M contains anything at all, like a dash, it will return “M”.

The basic syntax of the IF statement can be summarised as =if(condition is

fulfilled, something, otherwise something else).

IF statements are particularly useful because they can be nested. Nesting a

condition, allows one to ask many (up to seven) conditions within a single
statement. In the following example let us suppose that we want to classify the
seven districts in Cornwall according to their population density. In our
classification we want to have three groups, those districts which have a
population density of less than one person per acre; those which have a population
density of between one and five persons per acre and third, those which have a
density of over five persons per acre.

A B C D
Acres Population Density
1 Bomin MB 3312 5514 1.66
2 Bude-Stratton 4294 4459 1.04
3 Camborne-Redruth 22062 34920 1.58
4 Falmouth 1880 15040 8.00
5 Fowey MB 2979 2255 0.76
6 Helston MB 4014 4939 1.23
7 Launceston MB 2182 4273 1.96

=IF(D4<1,"GROUP1",(IF(D4<5,"GROUP2", "GROUP3")))
Consider the statement in stages: =IF(D4<1,”GROUP1”, “ANOTHER GROUP”) allows
us to use two groups. Either the density is less than one or it isn’t. If it is the
formula will return “GROUP1” otherwise it will return “ANOTHER GROUP”. So
rather than ask Excel to return the string “ANOTHER GROUP” for all those districts
which have a density of 1 or greater, we can nest a further IF statement. On its
own this nested statement would look like this: =IF(D4<5, “GROUP2”, “GROUP3”).
Here if the density is less than 5 Excel will return GROUP2 otherwise “GROUP3”.
Putting the two together is like saying: if the contents of cell D4 is less than 1
return “GROUP1”, otherwise, first check to see whether its also less than 5, if it is
then return “GROUP2”, and then for all others return “GROUP3”.
4. Counting within a list delimited by sequential numbers

This series of formulae show how one can add the total number of people in a
household to a spreadsheet based on census enumerators' books which only
contains schedule numbers. The method can be employed for counting other lists
of material which are delimited by sequential numbers.
A B C D E F G H
1
2 1 MARY GREAVES HEAD
3 JAMES DO SON
4 JAMES WARD SERV
5 ANN CHESHIRE DO
6 2 ISAAC PICKTON HEAD
7 ELLEN DO WIFE
8 MARY ANN DO NEICE
9 CATHERINE DO DO
10 ELIZA DO DO
11 3 MARY DUCKWORTH HEAD
12 THOMAS DO SON
13 ELIZABETH DO DAUR IN LAW
14 MARY ANN DO GRANDDAUR
15 JOSEPH ROYLE? LODGER
16 THOMAS? DO DO
17 BETTY LOWTON DO
18 JOHN FOULKES? DO
19 JANE DO DO
20 FANNY GARDY? DO
21 4 JOSEPH WATTS HEAD
22 CATHARINE DO WIFE
23 FANY DO DAUR
24 CAROLINE DO DO
25 ELLEN WILKINSON SERV
26 5 LYDIA FURNIVAL? HEAD
27 MARY A DO NEICE
28 MARY G DO GRAND DAUR
29 6 WILLIAM BEAUMONT HEAD
30 7 ROBERT DOBSON HEAD
31 ELIZABETH DO WIFE
32 MARGARET DO DAUR
33 JANE FLETCHER STEP DAUR

Column A contains the schedule number; columns B and C contain the personal
name and column D contains the relationship to household head. Note that the
first row of this spreadsheet is empty.
Step one: Allocating a household number to each individual
First, ensure that the first row of the table is empty. Type into cell E2
=IF(A2>=1,A2,E1) and then copy down to the end of the column. This checks
whether the "schedule" number in column A is present or not. If it is present, then
that number is put into column E; if it is not then the number directly above is
inserted.

Step two: Allocating a sequential household number

In cell F2 insert the following formula: =IF(E2-E1=1,1,F1+1). This adds a sequential
personal identifier for each member of the household.

Step three: removing household numbers

Insert =IF(F2>=F3,F2,0) into cell G2 and copy down to the end of the table. This
allocates the total number of people in the household to the last person only, all
others get the value of 0.

Step four: putting the highest household number to all records in the household
Putting the formula =IF(F2=G2,G2,H3) into cell H2. This adds the total number of
people in each household to all the household members.

Note: If using OpenOffice Calc replace the commas in the if statements with semi-
colons.