The Function Wizard

In the previous lesson you learnt how to enter functions manually.
If you are not sure about how to enter a particular function, or the correct function for the operations that you want to perform, you can use the Function Wizard.

Click on the “Insert Function” button beside the formula bar.
This opens the “Insert Function” dialog box.

In the upper section of the dialog we can search for a function with keywords.
And in the bottom it will display all the functions that Excel has found that have something to do with the keyword we typed.

In the middle field we can search by selecting a category.

In this example, I calculate the payments on a loan, so I need the PMT function.
You can also see the explanation of the selected functions.

I select the PMT function and click OK.
This will open the second dialog box where I need to enter a number of arguments.
The number of arguments is dependent on the selected function.
The arguments in bold in the dialog box are mandatory, the rest are optional.

In the first section we give the interest. We divide this by twelve because this is an annual interest.

To know the monthly payments in the second section we give the number of periods in the loan as 20 years, that is 240 months in cell C5.
And in the third section we give the amount in cell C2.
The two boxes below are optional, so we need not fill them.
The result is already shown at the bottom left of the dialog.

If you wish to select the cells manually, click the “Collapse” button beside the appropriate box.
If you have selected the cells, click the “Expand” button to return to the dialog box.

When all arguments are entered, click the OK button.
The result:

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