Order of operations in excel forumals.

**aem2879** · 10-24-2014, 11:08 PM

Usually when I am using formulas in Excel, I almost always get a dialog box attempting to correct a mistake I made in my formula due to maybe too many parentheses or not enough brackets. So I was wondering what is the order that Excel goes through while working through a formula.

**MarvinP** · 10-24-2014, 11:10 PM

Hi aem and welcome to the forum,

On the Formulas Tab there is a way to evaluate any formula. See it at:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ex...010342483.aspx

I think this is what you are looking for.

**joeu2004** · 10-25-2014, 02:27 AM

Originally Posted by aem2879

Usually when I am using formulas in Excel, I almost always get a dialog box attempting to correct a mistake I made in my formula due to maybe too many parentheses or not enough brackets. So I was wondering what is the order that Excel goes through while working through a formula.

See:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/calculation-operators-and-precedence-HP010342223.aspx

An important point of confusion: unary negation is higher precedence than exponentiation, which is different from many computer languages. Consequently, -2^2 is 4 instead of -4.

Yet 0 - 2^2 results in -4 because the minus operator is subtraction, which is lower precedence than exponentiation.

Many people carp that that is a defect. Granted, it is unfortunate. But it is simply how Microsoft chose to define the order of operation.

So be sure to write -(2^2), if that is your intent.