How To Calculate The Difference In Excel

Microsoft Excel offers some very interesting ways to calculate the difference between 2 numbers. We can use these functionalities of Excel to our use and in turn calculate the difference. We can calculate the difference in the following 2 ways:

Using the “SUM()” formula
Using the “A-B” formula

We’ll learn about each of these features step by step.

Option 1- Using the SUM() formula:

Option-1 (Step-1): Selecting the excel cell to enter the formula

To do this yourself, please follow the steps described below;

Open the desired Excel workbook in which you want to enable this feature and select a blank cell to enter the formula
Now type “=SUM” in this cell. This will tell Excel that we want to type in a formula. Now also type ”(“ to enter the arguments in the brackets.
Now to enter the first number in the bracket, click on the first number i.e. click on cell “C2”, and enter a comma “,”, and then enter the minus sign “-“ followed by clicking the second number i.e. cell “C3”.

Option-1 (Step-2): Entering the formula

We can see the difference of 2 numbers in cell “C4”

Option-1 (Final Image): Getting the difference

Option 2 – Using the A-B formula:

Let’s get started with the second option. This option allows us to use the difference operator.

This operator (-) is used to calculate the difference of 2 or more numbers, universally, and we will be applying this in excel as well.

Option-2 (Step-1): Selecting the excel cell to enter the formula

To do this yourself, please follow the steps described below;

Open the desired Excel workbook in which you want to enable this feature and select a blank cell to enter the formula
Now let us move to a blank cell in excel, to calculate the difference of these 2 numbers, and click this cell (in this case cell – ‘C4’), to make this cell active.
Now type “=”, this will tell excel that we want to type in a formula. Now select the first number, in this case cell “C2”, and then press the minus sign “-“. And then select the second number, in this case cell “C3”.