Using Array Formulas in Excel OFC-10

What Are Array Formulas?

Imagine being able to tell via a formula if your data is correct, such as determining
that the successive cells increase by 1, or whether 2 ranges have duplicate values.
Can you determine in one formula if your text matches a particular pattern in an
entire range (like First name, space, Last name?) and if not, point to the cell with
the error?
How often did you wish you could easily know, from a list, the total of amounts
with year 1995 for department "Finance", when that list is strewn with dates other
than 1995 and departments other than Finance? Array-formulas come to the rescue.
Want to sum the digits in a cell? Try it. It needs an array formula (enter 81736 in a
cell and by some formula come up with the value 8+1+7+3+6). Again, this
technique is solved with array formulas.
Array formulas are very powerful formulas which can summarize data on a
worksheet or even summarize data which is not on a worksheet (like being able to
determine the total amount for items in March when the range consists of dates, not
just months, for example. Whoever uses MONTH(A1:A50)?).
They are always entered via holding the Ctrl and Shift keys before pressing enter.
Doing so places curly braces {} around the formula, but only in the formula bar.
You do not enter these. They are best explained by examples.

Using The OR Function

This technique isnt an array-function, and shouldnt be array-entered, but it should
be included because it deals with array-constants in a way you might not be aware.
Suppose you have a cell, B1, which you want to test for it containing either a 4, 6,
or 9. You might be tempted to enter =OR(B1=4,B1=6,B1=9) which would work
fine, but theres an easier way. The formula =OR(B1={4,6,9}) does the trick.
The curly braces were entered (manually) to indicate an array constant. When
entering an array constant you cannot enter variables even though their values
might be known. That is, if x is defined to be =4, then you still couldnt
use =OR(B1={x,6,9}) -- you would get error in formula.

Finding The Bottommost Cell In A Range

This technique works for both single column ranges or multiple column (but
contiguous) ranges. Often, the bottommost cell of a contiguous range of cells is not
necessarily the last cell in that range. You may have A1:A20, then A30:A35 filled.
The bottommost cell is A35. Lets look at a range of cells from

A1:E10.
To find the last-used cell
in the range you can array-enter =MAX(ROW(1:10)*(A1:E10<>"")). The part,
A1:E10<>"" will return a 10x5 array of TRUE/FALSE values. This comparison
could also have been done using ISBLANK function: NOT(ISBLANK(A1:E10)).
FALSE means the cell is blank, TRUE means the cell has some value. By
multiplying this array by the values {1;2;3;...;9;10}, which is done by using
ROW(1:10), you get
{0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,3,0;4,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0;0,0,6,0,0;0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,8;0,9,0,
0,0;0,0,0,0,0}.
Notice the semi-colons after every 5 values, corresponding to the next row in the
evaluation. The zeros are the result of multiplying FALSE by any number. If you
visually scan the expansion of the array, you see the first non-zero is a 3. This is in
the third row of values, in the set {0,0,0,3,0}. This corresponds to cell D3 in
the range A1:E10. The 3 is the result of multiplying TRUE by the corresponding
position of the ROW(1:10) -- were in the third row, and TRUE multiplied by 3
is 3. Every non-zero corresponds to a non-blanksin the range. This array is passed
to the MAX function, which in this case returns a 9, giving the desired result: 9
means the bottommost row used in A1:E10 was 9.

Searching Strings For Errors across ranges.

Suppose cells A1:A10 are supposed to contain names in the form First name,
space, Last name. Also suppose that cells A7 and A9 have errors -- there are no
spaces between the first and last names. (Like

BillClinton).
This technique
explores a way to determine which names, if any, are in error. Let B2 contain the
formula=IF(NOT(ISERROR(B1)),INDEX(A1:A10,B1)&" is incorrect.","") which
says that if cell B1 is not an error, then display the offending cell and the text is
incorrect.. The offending cell is indicated as the INDEX(A1:A10,B1). Therefore, cell
B1 must contain the location of the cell which contains an error within the range
A1:A10. Cell B1 contains the formula=MATCH(TRUE,ISERROR(SEARCH("
",A1:A10)),0). This is an interesting formula in that one does not usually use
a MATCH(TRUE... in Excel. You will find that this (as well as MATCH(FALSE...) has very
powerful applications. But first, lets examine the inner part of the formula:
SEARCH(" ",A1:A10) is unusual in that the SEARCH function usually examines a
cell, not a range. Therefore, its this usage which requires the formula being arrayentered.
This function might return something like {4;3;5;4;8;8;#VALUE!;6;#VALUE!;6}.
The first value, 4, means that theres a space in the 4th position of cell A1.
Similarly for the 3 and 5. The #VALUE! error in the 7th position of the array
corresponds to cell A7, which contains BillClinton, and indicates there is no space
in the cell. Similarly for cell A9. This array is passed to the ISERROR function
which converts the array to
{FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;TRUE;FALSE;TRUE;FALSE}
where the TRUE corresponds to the #VALUE! errors. The MATCH function, then,
finds the TRUE value in this array, and the value in cell B1, 7 in this case, is the
result (the ,0 at the end of the MATCH function indicating that an exact match is
to be found). If all the cells contained a space, the array would be all FALSEs, and
the MATCH would return an error. Therefore, cell B2 would be blank because its
testing for an error condition in cell B1.

Counting occurrences of substrings in a range of cells

Suppose you wanted to know how many times the letter a occurred in a range of
cells? Or how many cells contained an a? Each has its own solution. One way to
find the number of cells in a range containing an a is to use the
formula =SUM(IF(ISERROR(SEARCH(a,MyRange)),,1)). This formula uses the
SEARCH function to search a range of cells. Since usually this function is used to
search a string, not a range, the solution requires you to array-enter the formula.
(FIND could be used if you were interested in a case-sensitive search).The
SEARCH will return an array of numbers or error values. The numbers correspond
to the position in the string of the letter a and the errors indicate theres no a.
The array corresponds to each cell in the range. Since its not easy to work with
error values, the ISERROR converts them to TRUE/FALSE. Wherever theres a
FALSE, the IF returns a 1. By the way, this formula could also have been done
with =SUM(1*NOT(ISERROR(SEARCH(a,MyRange)))) which changes the FALSEs to
TRUEs by using the NOT function, then multiplying them by 1 so the SUM
function could add them up.
If you were interested in how many times an a occurred, counting banana as
having 3 as, you could use the formula =SUM(LEN(MyRange))SUM(LEN(SUBSTITUTE(MyRange, "a",""))).Heres how this one works. The LEN
function usually requires, again, a string, not a range. So, the requirement is to
array-enter the formula so Excel knows to treat each value in the range as a string
for the LEN function. LEN(A1:A2) would return {3;5} if A1 contained bob and
A2 contained Sally. By taking the SUM(LEN(MyRange)), we have the total number
of characters in MyRange. If we subtract from that the total characters in
MyRange without the letter a, then we have the number of times a appears.
This is what the second part of the formula does. The SUBSTITUTE function is
changing a to the null string. Within a range of cells, each is returned as an array
of values, passed to the LEN function, and SUMmed up.

Finding The Last Part Of A String

It is fairly frequent that you want to know the name of a file without its path, as in
the illustration.

Cell A1 contains the text of the path to a file. The backslash is used as a delimiter,
separating the various fields. Cell A1 could also contain any text, like Now is
the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party where the delimiter is
a space, and this technique will extract the word party, the last field in the

string. The formula in cell A3 is complicated, so lets see what it needs to contain
rather than just reveal it.
The task would be easy if we needed to find the first backslash: we could use the
SEARCH function. If the text were reversed, then we could find the first backslash.
So, our job will be to reverse the text. It turns out that reversing the text in one
formula is not possible (or at least I have not discovered a way!), but it is possible
to reverse the text as single characters rather than as one string. For an easier
example, suppose cell D7 in a different spreadsheet contained the text abc. How
can we change that to the array {c,b,a}? Well, that can be done fairly easily.
Since the technique which makes it {a,b,c} is by arrayentering =MID(D7,ROW(1:3),1), look at what this function does: =MID(D7,4ROW(1:3),1). By introducing the 4-, we are subtracting the array {1;2;3} from
the value 4, which produces the array {3;2;1}! Now, =MID(D7,{3;2;1},1) produces
{c,b,a}.
Now that you see the approach, lets look a bit further. Instead of using a constant,
4, we use the LEN(D7)+1. Instead of just reversing the string, we also need to
MATCH the delimiter against this string to find the first one.The
formulaMATCH("\",MID(A1,LEN(A1)+1-ROW(1:25),1),0)used in the illustration
above becomesMATCH("\",
{"f";"f";"u";"t";"S";"y";"M";"\";"S";"E";"L";"P";"M";"A";"X";"E";"\";"5";"L";"E";
"C";"X";"E";"\";":";"C"},0).
You can see that were searching backwards for the occurrence of the backslash.
This evaluates to 8. So, what do we do with this 8? We actually want one less
characters from the end because we dont want to include the backslash. We need
to take the last 7 characters of the cell. That lends itself to the RIGHT function.
Therefore, subtracting 1 from the above formula does the trick. Array
enter: =RIGHT(A1,MATCH("\",MID(A1,LEN(A1)+1-ROW(1:25),1),0)-1). It turns out
that the adding 1 then subtracting 1 do, in fact, cancel each other out, and the more
compact formula is =RIGHT(A1,MATCH("\",MID(A1,LEN(A1)-ROW(1:25),1),0)).
To ensure you will find the last part when the last part may be more than 25
characters, you should change the ROW(1:25) to be ROW(1:255).
After explaining all that, there is a way to do it without an array formula! By using
the SUSTITUTE function, you can change the last delimiter to some other
character, then search the string for this character, and everything after that
character is the last part. The SUBSTITUTE function has as its syntax,
=SUBSTITUTE(text,old text, new text,instance #). The instance# you want is
calculated also by the SUBSTITUTE function : =LEN(A1)LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1,"\","")) returns the number of times "\" occurs (the
SUBSTITUTE is changing \ to null, so the length changes. If the string were
a\a\a, then this gives 5-LEN(aaa) or 5-3, or 2, the number of backslashes.
Now change the last backslash to some other string, say
CHAR(13): SUBSTITUTE(A1,"\",CHAR(13),LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1,"\",""))).

This changes the last backslash to CHAR(13). Now find it: FIND(CHAR(13),
SUBSTITUTE(A1,"\",CHAR(13),LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1,"\","")))) which gives
the position of this character, and now use it in a MID function to return the last
part: =MID(A1,FIND(CHAR(13), SUBSTITUTE(A1,"\",CHAR(13),LEN(A1)LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1,"\",""))))+1,255)

Granted, this formula is longer, but it calculates much more quickly than an array
formula.

Matching More Than One Column Against A String

In the following illustration we see that there are duplicate names running down
column A. To find an amount (Column C) for a name must depend on some other
factor, like a code (Column B). For example, to find the amount for John with code
3, we can visually see it is in row 9, and the amount is 158.

But how can we find that using Excel formulas? If columns A and B were
combined, for example, by entering =A2&B2 in cell D2 and filling down, wed
have a unique set of values to search. That is, in column D wed see
Bob1;Bob2;Bob3, etc. John3 would appear in cell D9. Then we could
use =MATCH(E2&E3,D2:D20,0) and find the row the result is in. Well, using array
formulas, we can simulate the combining of columns A and B. Cell E4 contains the
array-entered formula =INDEX(C:C,MATCH(E2&F2,$A$1:$A$22&$B$1:$B$22,0)). Since
were ANDing A1:A22 with B1:B22, this gives us the array
{"NameCode";"Bob1";"Bob2";"Bob3";"Bob4";"Bob5";"John1";"John2";"John3";"
John4";"John5";"Bill1";"Bill2";"Bill3";"Bill4";"Bill5";"Bill6";"Bill7";"Bill8";"Bill
9";"Bill10";"Bill11"}.
MATCHing John3 to this gives the result we want, 9. Passing this to the INDEX
function gives the number we need, 158.

Are There Duplicate Values In Two Ranges?

There are times when you have two ranges of values and you need to know if there
are any duplicate values within the ranges. Usually, the orientation of the values
are the same, but in this technique well discuss how to make the comparison
independent of the orientation (although you will have to take the orientation into
consideration to use the correct formulas).

In the top half, we see two ranges, A1:A3 and C1:C3, and theres a 6 in both
ranges. As you can see form cell B6, the TRUE indicates that there is a duplicate.
The text box overlaying cells D4:H5 shows the array-entered
formula, =OR(TRANSPOSE(A1:A3)=C1:C3).
The TRANSPOSE function changes the orientation of A1:A3 to be horizontal, just
so its the opposite orientation of the second range. By doing this, Excel will
compare each value in the first array to every value in the second, not simply a
one-to-one correspondence. That is, the 4 in cell C1 will be compared to {1;6;3},
the 5 in C2 will be compared to {1;6;3}, and the 6 in C3 will be compared to
{1;6;3}, giving 9 comparisons in total. In general, the number of comparisons is
given by the number of elements of each array multiplied together, in this case 3x3.
If you dragged across the formula inside the OR function and pressed the F9 key
(calculate), you would see
{FALSE,FALSE,FALSE;FALSE,FALSE,FALSE;FALSE,TRUE,FALSE}, where
the eighth value is TRUE because that is the comparison of cell C3 against A2.
Since this array of TRUEs and FALSEs are passed to the OR function, any
occurrence of a TRUE will result in a TRUE, indicating theres a match, or
duplicate. If none of the values match, they will be all FALSE values, which result
in a FALSE when ORed together.

In the bottom half of the illustration, the comparison is already of differing

orientations, so the TRANSPOSE function is not needed, and the range A9:A11
(same values as before) is being compared to C10:H10. There are 3x6, or 18,
comparisons. If you F9 the formula inside the OR function, you would see, of
course,
{FALSE,FALSE,FALSE,FALSE,FALSE,FALSE;FALSE,FALSE,FALSE,FALSE,F
ALSE,FALSE;FALSE,FALSE,FALSE,FALSE,FALSE,FALSE}.
Notice every sixth FALSE is followed by a semicolon, whereas all the others are
commas. This indicates the orientation.

A Problem, Or Limitation, Of This Technique

There is a problem using this technique. Since one orientation must be row-wise,
the maximum number of values which can be compared is 256. How, then can we
find out if theres a duplicate if there are more than 256 values? That is, if the
ranges to be compared are A1:A400 vs B1:B400, the TRANSPOSE of either one
wont work. The array will be chopped off after 256 values. Well, theres another
way, using array-formulas. If you compare two ranges by the formula
=MATCH(range1,range2,0) and array enter it, you will see something like
{#N/A;#N/A;2;#N/A;#N/A;4;#N/A}, where the #N/As indicate theres no match
between the particular element of the first array against all the elements of the
second array, and the values indicate there is a match and in what position the
match occurs.
The COUNT function, interestingly, ignores #N/A values and just returns the count
of the number of non-#N/A values, so you can
use =COUNT(MATCH(range1,range2,0)). When this count is 0, there are no matches
between the two arrays.

Determining If The Contents Of A Range Are Unique

Suppose you have a worksheet which contains ranges which you want to know if
the items in them are unique. For example, look at the illustration:

Cells A1:A7 are defined as range, and the COUNTIF function is used to return
an array of values. Usually, the COUNTIF function takes two arguments: a range,
and a criteria, where the criteria is a simple test. In this case, were using the range
itself as the criteria, and therefore the function must be array-entered.
What does COUNTIF(range,range) do for us? Well, each value in the range is used
as the criteria in turn. When the range A1:A7, which evaluates to {1;3;2;4;3;3;4},
is used twice in the COUNTIF function, the first test is
=COUNTIF({1;3;2;4;3;3;4},1) which counts the number of times the range is
equal to 1. This is 1. The second test is =COUNTIF({1;3;2;4;3;3;4},3) which
counts the number of times the range equals 3. The reason the criteria is 3 is that
this is the second value in the range. There are three 3s. Similarly for the other 5
tests: there is one 2, two 4s, three 3s, three 3s, and two 4s. Therefore,
=COUNTIF({1;3;2;4;3;3;4},{1;3;2;4;3;3;4}) produces the array {1;3;1;2;3;3;2}.
Passing this to the MAX function, =MAX(COUNTIF(range,range)), returns the largest
value of the array, or 3. Since this doesnt equal 1, the result is FALSE, which
indicates the range is not made up of unique values. The range C8:C14 in the
illustration contains the characters a-g. The COUNTIF(Range2,Range2) returns the
array {1;1;1;1;1;1;1} because each of the items in the criteria returns a 1:
=COUNTIF(Range2,a) counts the number of times the Range2 equals a,
which is 1, and similarly for b, c, etc. MAX({1;1;1;1;1;1;1}) is 1, which,
when compared to a 1, returns TRUE, indicating the range contains unique values.
Theres another very powerful formula which counts the number of unique values
in a range: =SUM(1/COUNTIF(range,range)), array-entered. Suppose the range
consisted of the 7 values {11,12,13,11,14,11,12}. This function would return 4
because there are 4 unique values. The COUNTIF part returns the array
{3,2,1,3,1,3,2} where each value is the number of times the corresponding values
occur. That is, 11 occurs 3 times, 12 twice, 13 once, etc. Dividing this array into 1
gives the array {.33333,.5,1,.33333,1,.33333,.5}. Each of the .33333s (or 1/3)
corresponds to the 3s, and there are 3 of them. The .5s correspond to the 2s, and
there are 2 of them, etc. Adding them up brings together the 3-thirds, 2-halves,
etc, and therefore counts how many there are! That is, we have 3 x .33333, 2 x .5,

and 2 1s. This totals 4, the number of unique values. So you could use this formula
as well as the MAX function just discussed.

Calculating The Sum Of The Digits

Suppose cell A1 contains the value 15234. The digits add up to 15. If you can make
each digit in cell A1 occupy its own cell, then you can just SUM the results. This
can be simulated by using an array formula. The array formula which works
is =SUM(1*MID(A1,ROW(INDIRECT("1:"&LEN(A1))),1)). Lets first understand this
formula by looking at the formula wed use if we knew the length of cell A1 were
5: =SUM(1*MID(A1,ROW(1:5),1)). This expands to =SUM(1*MID(A1,
{1;2;3;4;5},1)) which becomes =SUM(1*{"1";"5";"2";"3";"4"}) which becomes
=SUM({1;5;2;3;4}) which is 15.
But, Excel wont allow us to enter ROW(1:LEN(A1)). We can create this by using the
INDIRECT function, INDIRECT("1:"&LEN(A1)). This becomes INDIRECT(1:5)
which Excel understands, and passing this to the ROW function gives us the
array we need, {1;2;3;4;5}. Another attempt might be to just use an array which is
large enough to cover any number entered. So we could
try =SUM(1*MID(A1,ROW(1:30),1)), but this gives a #VALUE! error because once
Excel evaluates MID(A1,6,1) this becomes null, (), and when this is multiplied
by 1 it becomes an error. SUMming arrays with errors results in an error.

Extracting Just The Numeric Portion Of A Cell

If you have a column of cells which contain alphanumeric data, such as a part
number, you may want to be able to sort by the numeric portion. But extracting the
numeric portion may not be easy if the alpha size varies. For example, if one part
number is ABC123 and another is PART03772, finding the 123 and the 3772 is not
a trivial task. Here well explore one method to do it. The first part is to determine
how to find the location of the first digit. For this illustration, lets assume cell A1
contains ABC123. You can change the string into an array by an array-formula
such as =MID(A1,ROW(1:10),1).
The function ROW(1:10) is used for the array portion, the 10 being an arbitrarily
large enough number to parse each string (assuming no part will have an alpha
section longer than 10 characters). This formula would give the array
{A,B,C,1,2,3,,,,}. We still cant distinguish a real difference
between letters and numbers here, but if we were to multiply this array by 1:
=1*MID(A1,ROW(1:10),1) we get the array {#VALUE!, #VALUE!,
#VALUE!,1,2,3, #VALUE!, #VALUE!, #VALUE!,#VALUE!}.
Notice there are values 1, 2, and 3 embedded in the resulting array. Here we can
see a difference! What about now passing this array to the ISERROR function?
=ISERROR(1*MID(A1,ROW(1:10),1)) gives the array

{TRUE,TRUE,TRUE,FALSE,FALSE,FALSE,TRUE...} and here we can find the

first FALSE condition (the position which corresponds to the first digit in the part
number) by using
MATCH: =MATCH(FALSE,ISERROR(1*MID(A1,ROW(1:10),1)),0) which returns a
4.Now we need to extract that part of the part number using
MID: =MID(A1,MATCH(FALSE,ISERROR(1*MID(A1,ROW(1:10),1)),0),255). But that
returns the numeric portion as text which wont sort the way we want (2 will sort
after 123 because as text 2 is after 1), so to convert it back to a number we
need to multiply it by
1: =1*MID(A1,MATCH(FALSE,ISERROR(1*MID(A1,ROW(1:10),1)),0),255)
Array-enter this, fill down and sort by the result.

Finding The Closest Value To The Average

When you use the AVERAGE function, the result will not necessarily be one of the
values in the range. There may be times when you want to know which value is the
closest. For example, in the illustration, you can see that cell B8 returns the value
23 which is the closest value to the average of 21.8, shown in cell B7.

When you need to find a close value, youre not interested in whether the value is
on the high side or low side. That is, for the average of 21.8, 22 is closer than 21 -subtracting the average from these values produces a .2 and a negative .8. Since
youre not interested in positive or negative, you cant just take the minimum
value, but you can take the minimum value of the absolute differences.
To get the absolute differences, you take each value and subtract the average, then
pass this calculation to the ABS function. So far, then you have =ABS(UnitsAVERAGE(Units)). This part produces the array {11.8;6.8;1.2;23.2;5.8}: (10 - 21.8
is -11.8, 15 - 21.8 is -6.8, etc. The negative sign disappears because of the ABS
function).
Now we have a range of differences, but were interested in the smallest of these,
so this is passed to the MIN function. This returns 1.2. Now we have to
find where the 1.2 is in the range, so we MATCH this MIN(ABS(UnitsAVERAGE(Units))) against the range ABS(Units-AVERAGE(Units)), and the third
parameter of the MATCH function, zero, requests an exact match, so we find the
1.2 in the 3rd item of the array. Pass this 3 to the INDEX function, and Excel
returns the closest value.

The final formula is

=INDEX(units,MATCH(MIN(ABS(units-

AVERAGE(units))),ABS(units-AVERAGE(units)),0))

array-entered, of course.

Adding Conditions Meeting At Least One Criteria

Suppose you have a worksheet which lists names, dates, and amounts, and you
wish to add up all the amounts for which the name is Bob OR the date is before
5/1/98.
If you try some variety of using an OR-function you will meet with failure because
if any of the items returns TRUE, then the entire OR-function will return TRUE,
and you will probably add up all the amounts. For example, if you
try =SUM(IF(OR(Name=Bob,Month(Date)<5),Amount)) youll get a number which is
probably wrong because Name=Bob might evaluate to
{TRUE;FALSE;FALSE;TRUE;FALSE;TRUE;FALSE;FALSE}, and
Month(Date)<5 might evaluate to
{FALSE;TRUE;FALSE;TRUE;TRUE;TRUE;FALSE;TRUE} and when these
arrays are ORed together, the result is simply TRUE, not an array consisting of
TRUE/FALSE. Therefore, the formula reduces to =SUM(IF(TRUE,Amount))
which, or course, is the sum of all the amounts.
The formula for the solution is the array-entered: =SUM(((Name="Bob")+
(MONTH(Date)<5)>0)*Amount).

Lets see how this works. Also, lets assume the values for Amount are
{1;2;3;4;5;6;7;8}. If you ADD the two TRUE/FALSE arrays detailed above, you
get the array {1;1;0;2;1;2;0;1}. Note: TRUE + TRUE evaluates to 2, TRUE +
FALSE evaluates to 1 and FALSE + FALSE evaluates to 0. What is this? Well,
each 1 corresponds to a TRUE+FALSE or FALSE+TRUE, meaning one of the
conditions was met (Name was Bob or Month(Date) was less than 5). 2 means
both conditions were met, and zero means neither condition was met. Youre
interested in the non-zeros. Therefore, comparing this array to zero:
{1;1;0;2;1;2;0;1}>0 evaluates to
{TRUE;TRUE;FALSE;TRUE;TRUE;TRUE;FALSE;TRUE},and when this is
multiplied by Amount, it evaluates to {1;2;0;4;5;6;0;8}. When this is SUMmed
together you get 26. If you had wanted to add the amounts together
when both conditions are met, you could use the array-entered
formula:=SUM((Name="Bob")*(MONTH(Date)<5)*Amount).

Creating a calendar with a single array-entered formula

People seem to always want t be able to create a calendar in Excel, for some
reason, so heres a way to do so using one formula. Its a little tricky, but with the
techniques used so far, itll be straightforward. Its best to define 2 names, week
and weekday. Week is defined as an array constant, ={0;1;2;3;4;5} and weekday as

={1,2,3,4,5,6,7}. Notice that week has semicolons separating the entries, implying
that its a column-oriented array, and weekday contains commas, implying a roworiented array.
Three cells are used to drive the calendar in the session: A1, which
contains =TODAY(), B1, which contains =WEEKDAY(B2), and B2 which
contains =DATE(YEAR(A1),MONTH(A1),1). Cell B2, then, is the first of the month of
the date entered in cell A1. If, by default, A1 contains =TODAY(), then the
calendar will open up displaying the current month. If you wanted any other
month, you can simply enter a new date in cell A1. Cell B1 is the day of the week
of cell B2, as a number, where 1=Sunday.
A 6 row x 7 column selection is made and the formula =Calendar is array-entered.
Calendar is =week*7+weekday+B2-B1. Lets examine how this all works. Lets
assume were working with February, 98. The part of the formula
=week*7+weekday will always be the same, namely the numbers 1-42. How?
Week*7 is the column-oriented array {0;7;14;21;28;35}. When this is added to the
row-oriented array {1,2,3,4,5,6,7}, Excel expands to give
{1,2,3,4,5,6,7;8,9,10,11,12,13,14;15,16,17,18,19,20,21;22,23,24,25,26,27,28;29,30
,31,32,33,34,35;36,37,38,39,40,41,42}. Notice the semi-colons after the 7, 14, etc.
This indicates the next row is begins there.
To this array is added B2, which contains the date for the first day of the month.
For February 98, this is the serial # 35827. Now we have an array consisting of
{35828,35829, , etc.}. Now the weekday of 2/1/98 is subtracted. Since 2/1 is a
Sunday, the weekday is 1, and the array becomes {35827,35828, , etc.).
Since these are valid serial #s, you can simply format them as d, and youll see
the day of the month. Since 2/1/98 is a Sunday, the calendar starts right in with the
1 in the upper left cell of the 6x7 range. By making the row heights high and
formatting the cells alignment to be vertical:top, horizontal:right, it looks like a
real calendar!
A few notes, however. If we looked at November 97, for example, we would see
the upper left cell start with a 26. This is because the entire 6x7 array is filled with
serial numbers and the Sunday in the upper left corner is the 26 th of October 97.
The whole first row contains {26,27,28,29,30,31,1} and we only want to see the 1.
Similarly, the bottom row contains {30,1,2,3,4,5,6} because it extends into
December 97 and here we only want to see the 30.
This was fixed by making the formula a bit more complicated, but makes the result
just what we want:
=IF(DAY(Calendar)>15,IF(ROW()=5,"",Calendar),IF(DAY(Calendar)<15,IF(ROW()>8
,"",Calendar),Calendar))

This formula is array-entered, of course, and says that if the day of the month is
>15, then in the first row show blank. Lets examine this a bit more before looking
at the rest of the formula. In the first row, we saw some days from the previous
month (when we looked at 11/97). This was row 5 in the session. So, if the day is

over 15 (15 is fairly arbitrary the first number we could see from the previous
month is 26, so 25 would have worked as well), and the row is the first row, dont
show it: =IF(DAY(Calendar)>15,IF(ROW()=5, "",Calendar
Similarly, in the last row(s), we dont want to show the days from the beginning of
the next month, so here were looking at IF(DAY(Calendar)<15,IF(ROW()>8,
"",Calendar which effectively removes the beginning of the next month. We
chose ROW()>8 rather than ROW()=10 because some months are short , like 2/98,
and only take up 4 rows. In that case we want to blank out rows 5 and 6.