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This wikiHow teaches you how to do subtraction in Excel.
Steps
Subtract the value of multiple cells
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Open up Excel. The app is green with a white “X”.
- If you want to use an existing Excel document, double-click the Excel document to be calculated.
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Click Blank workbook (for regular computers) or Excel Workbook (for Macbooks) at the top left of the “Template” window to create a new workbook.
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Enter data if necessary. To proceed, click a cell, type a number, and then press ↵ Enter or ⏎ Return .
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Click an empty cell to select it.
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Type “=” into the cell (excluding quotes). You will always have to enter an “equal” sign before inserting any formula in Excel.
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Enter a name in the box. This is the name of the cell that contains the data that you want to subtract from the value of one (or more) other cells.
- For example, type “C1” to select the number in cell C1 .
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Type - in the box. You will see a minus sign appear after the number you entered.
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Type in another cell’s name. This is the cell whose value is used as a subtraction.
- You can repeat the process with multiple cells (eg “C1-A1-B2”).
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Press ↵ Enter or ⏎ Return . The formula in the cell will be calculated and replaced with the result.
- You can click on the cell to see the original formula in the text bar located just above the letter row.
Subtract within a cell
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Open up Excel. The app is green with a white “X”.
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Click Blank workbook (for regular computers) or Excel Workbook (for Macbooks) in the upper left of the “Template” window to create a new workbook.
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Click a cell. The cell you select doesn’t matter, unless you plan to create data in this workbook.
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Type “=” (excluding quotes) in the box. You will always have to enter an “equal” sign before inserting any formula in Excel.
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Type the number you want to subtract (the number to be subtracted). The number will appear in the selected cell, just to the right of the “equal” sign.
- For example, to calculate a budget, you need to enter your income for the month in this box.
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Type - in the box. You will see a minus sign appear after the number you entered.
- If you want to subtract multiple numbers (for example, XYZ), you’ll have to repeat this step after each subsequent number, minus the last one.
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Enter the minus number.
- If you’re budgeting, you’ll need to enter the amount spent in this box.
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Press ↵ Enter or ⏎ Return . The formula in the cell will be calculated and replaced with the result.
- You can click on the cell to see the original formula in the text bar located just above the letter row.
Subtract within a column
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Open up Excel. The app is green with a white “X”.
- If you want to use an existing Excel document, double-click the Excel document to be calculated.
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Click Blank workbook (for regular computers) or Excel Workbook (for Macbooks) in the upper left of the “Template” window to create a new workbook.
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Click an empty cell to select it.
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Enter the main number. Counting from the cell containing this number, the rest in the column will be selected.
- For example, you can enter your salary for the year here.
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Enter any subtraction in the box below. Enter the negative number of the number you want to subtract (for example, if you want to subtract 300, type “-300”).
- Enter a subtraction in each cell.
- Make sure that each number you enter is in the same column as the main number
- For payroll calculations, you need to type a “-” sign before each expense in each cell.
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Click an empty cell. This cell does not need to be in the same column as the main number.
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Type “=” (excluding quotes) to set the formula for that cell.
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Type SUM in the cell. The “SUM” command adds the items together.
- In Excel there is no formal “subtract” command by column, that’s why we need to enter numbers as negative numbers as above.
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Type (cell name:cell name) followed by SUM . The command will add all cells in the column from the value of the first cell to the value of the last cell.
- For example, if cell K1 is the cell containing the main number, and the last data cell in the column is K10 , type “(K1:K10)”.
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Press ↵ Enter or ⏎ Return . The formula will work and output the final result in the cell you selected.
Advice
- You can also use Excel to add multiple numbers together.
Warning
- If you do not type the = sign in the cell before entering the formula, the calculation will not take place.
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This article is co-authored by a team of editors and trained researchers who confirm the accuracy and completeness of the article.
The wikiHow Content Management team carefully monitors the work of editors to ensure that every article is up to a high standard of quality.
This article has been viewed 17,254 times.
This wikiHow teaches you how to do subtraction in Excel.
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