How To: Use the SUMIF & SUMPRODUCT functions in MS Excel

New to Excel? Looking for a tip? How about a tip so mind-blowingly advanced as to qualify as a magic trick? You're in luck. In this Excel tutorial from ExcelIsFun, the 315th installment in their series of digital spreadsheet magic tricks, you'll learn how (and when) to use the SUMIF & SUMPRODUCT functions.

The major points are as follows:

Point #1: SUMIF can only accept ranges of cells, not arrays.

Point #2: Functions such as YEAR & TEXT, which expect a single value and are given a range (except for LOOKUP and SUMPRODUCT), become arrays if the argument is given a range.

Point #3: A range extracted from a closed workbook becomes an array and thus with a SUMIF function yields a #VALUE error. To fix this use the INDIRECT function, or just use SUMPRODUCT.