Those people who often work at a computer will sooner or later come across a program such as Excel. But the conversation in the article will not be about all the pros and cons of the program, but about its separate component “Formula”. Of course, in schools and universities at computer science lessons, pupils and students take a course on this topic, but for those who have forgotten, this is our article.
We’ll talk about how to multiply a column by a column in Excel . Detailed instructions will be provided on how to do this, with a step-by-step analysis of each item, so that everyone, even a novice student, will be able to understand this issue.
Multiply a column by a column
How in Excel to multiply a column by a column, we will parse an example. Let's imagine that in the Excel workbook you have created a table with the cost and quantity of the product. You also have a cell at the bottom with the total amount. As you might guess, you need to quickly multiply the first two columns and find out their sum.
So, here is a step-by-step instruction:
- Select the desired cell and click on the icon of the function, which is located at the top of the main toolbar.
- You will see a window in which you will need to select "Other functions".
- Next, you need to select the mathematical functions from the group of functions.
- Select "SUMPRODUCT".
After that, a window will appear in which you will be asked to select a range with the necessary data, here you can go in two ways. The first implies that with the help of the cursor you will select the first column (cost) and its range will be indicated in "Array 1", and the second (price) will be indicated in "Array 2". As you can see, the range was indicated in characters (C2: C6). The second method implies that you enter these values manually, there is no difference from this.
Now you know one way in Excel to multiply a column by a column, but it is not the only one, and we will talk about the second later in the text.
The second way to multiply
To multiply the columns in the second way, you will also need to select the group of functions "mathematical", but now you need to use the "PRODUCT". Now you have two fields: "Number 1" and "Number 2". Click on "Number 1" and select the first value from the first column, repeat the same procedure with "Number 2", just select the first value of the second column.
After clicking “OK”, the product of the selected values appears in the cell with the formula, it remains only to autofill the cells, to do this, move the cursor to the lower right edge of the cell and drag it down to the desired number of points.
Now you have learned the second way in Excel to multiply a column by a column. Now let's talk about how to multiply a number by a column.
Multiply the column by a number
So how to multiply a column in Excel by a number? This is actually even easier. For this:
- Select the cell where the result will be located.
- Enter an equal sign in it.
- Select the first value from the column with the cursor, and then select the number by which this value will be multiplied.
- After that, hover over this number and press the F4 key.
- Now it remains only to move the cursor to the lower right corner of the cell with the answer and drag it to the required number of points.