Self-tutoring about spreadsheet functions: the tutor mentions intrate() in Google Sheets. The following is according to my understanding. The function intrate() calculates the effective interest rate for a buy-then-sell event. Its entry format is =intrate(date1,date2,value1,value2,[optional: day_count_convention]). The idea is that …
Self-tutoring about Google Sheets: the tutor mentions the today() and now() functions. The following is according to my understanding. In Google Sheets, =today() will give the date, such as 1/6/2026 for January 6, 2026. That’s American format, it seems…anyway, it’s …
Self-tutoring about Google Sheets: the tutor mentions how to confirm the date format. The following is according to my understanding. Today I was using Google Sheets, but was surprised that its date format was mm/dd/yyyy. I went online to find …
Spreadsheets: Google Sheets: date format, part 1 Read more »
Self-tutoring about Excel: the tutor mentions another interesting function. In Excel, the t function seems to return the contents of a cell if the cell contains text, but an empty string, aka “”, otherwise. Then, what might qualify as text? …
Self-tutoring about Excel: the tutor mentions another neat function from it, this time about depreciation. Let’s imagine one wants to calculate declining-balance depreciation for the following case: Purchase price of 10000, salvage of 1000, useful life of ten years: what …
Self-tutoring about Excel: the tutor mentions its days function. As I understand, =days(later_date, earlier_date) will yield the days between those two dates, inclusive of one. For instance, =days(“05-april-2025″,”04-april-2025”) returns 1. For another example, =days(“08-may-2025″,”11-oct-2024”) returns 209. Such is my experience, …
Excel: function to calculate days between two dates Read more »
Self-tutoring about Excel: the tutor mentions pduration. To my understanding, Excel’s pduration(the_rate, amount1, amount2) function calculates the number of periods for an investment of amount1 to be worth amount2 at the_rate per period, compounded. For instance, let’s imagine an investment …
Self-tutoring about Excel: the tutor mentions its base() function. Let’s imagine needing to write a number in a different base; for example, needing to write 1005 in base 7. Excel has a function for that: =base(1005, 7). Apparently the answer …
Self-tutoring about Excel: the tutor mentions converting from Roman numerals to Arabic. Imagine you want to know what DXCIV is in Arabic numerals. Well, one might open up Excel and key in =Arabic(“DXCIV”). (Apparently, the answer is 594.)
Self-tutoring about Excel: the tutor mentions a fun function. Suppose you don’t know what 588 is in Roman numerals. In Excel, you could just enter =Roman(588) in a cell, and receive the satisfying answer DLXXXVIII. The =Roman() function is one …