Learn how to get percentage in Excel it’s very easy, the software runs it by itself. no need for you to remember what you learned in school. Excel applies formulas for percentages of one or two numbers.
Solve how to get a percentage in Excel
To learn how to get percentage in Excel, it is best that you study it from an example.
Suppose your company sold $ 150,000 in one quarter, and you need to know $ 50,000 what percentage is out of $ 150,000.
In this case you must divide 50,000 over 150,000, but to avoid doing the calculation yourself, Excel does it for you with a simple formula, depending on where you have placed the numbers, (the Z corresponds to the cell where you have placed the numbers and the X to the column), then you will place cell ZX = ZX / ZX and it will show you a result with decimals because cell ZX does not have a percentage format, so let’s suppose you entered the numbers like this:
In cell A3 $ 150,000, in cell B3 $ 50,000, then the decimal result will be displayed in cell C4.
But if you want to apply a percentage format to the result in decimals and eliminate the “0”) do the following:
- Click on the Home tab.
- Click on “percentage.
Video: How to get percentages in Excel easily
Excel online: how to get percentage in Excel
Although it is rare, it may be that you do not have the Microsoft package and therefore if you need to get a percentage you can use Excel online and in this case handle it like this:
- Click on “Start”
- Click “number format”
- Click on “percentage” that you will find in the home tab.
So you will see that $ 50,000 is 3.33% of $ 150,000.
Suppose you put in cell A2 $ 15000, in cell B2 you put $ 50000, in cell C2 you will see 3.33%
How to get percentage in Excel between two numbers
Let’s take another example, you want to make a comparison between two years and find out the percentage change. In 2015 your company sold $ 500,000 and the following year in 2016 it sold $ 600,000, was there a change in the percentage between those two years?
- You must first apply percentage formatting in cell B3 by clicking on it.
- Go to the “Home” tab
- Click on the “percentage” button
How to get a percentage in Excel online
In case you use Excel online, you can also find out how to get percentage in Excel, in this way:
- Click on “Start”
- Click on “number format”
- Finally click on “percentage”
- Go to cell B3 and divide by the second year sales with the first year 500,000 divided by 600,000 and then subtract 1.
- In cell A2 put $ 500000, in cell B2 put $ 600000 and in cell B3 put the percentage that corresponds to the two numbers.
- = (B2 / A2) -1 is the formula for C3
Everything Excel sees in parentheses is what it calculates and then it will subtract 1.
In fact, Excel is a spreadsheet. An application that works with data that is placed in cells and distributed in columns and rows.
Excel receives the information in the cell, where the values and formulas are placed to calculate the mathematical operations.
How to get percentage in Excel; example
Another example to learn how to get a percentage in Excel.
Suppose you need to calculate the food for a birthday party based on the number of guests. There are 50 guests at the party, but only 20 of them like sweets, so you want to know the percentage of those 20 guests out of the total of 50:
- Choose any cell, for example D4.
- To do the calculation you will need a simple rule of three: 50 is the total, that is, 100% and 20 is the unknown “x”
- If 50 is the total or 100% 20, to what percentage does it correspond?
- (20/50) * / 100 you will write it in the cell you have chosen.
- Now you just have to press Enter on your computer keyboard and Excel will have given you the percentage you are looking for, that is 2.5%, because this is the percentage of guests who do not like sweets.
Another method to learn how to get a percentage in Excel
You can learn how to get a percentage in Excel from with another method:
- Enter the = sign in any empty cell on the spreadsheet, for example D5, but it can be another.
- Choose cells with numeric values and write the signs of the operations you need to perform.
- Then hit “Enter” on your computer keyboard.
- A3 / A2 * B2 * is the alphanumeric formula that asked Excel to return the percentage.
Excel signs
Excel understands as signs or symbols: To add the sign + (plus); to subtract: * (subtract symbol); for division: / (divide symbol); to multiply: * (the asterisk is the sign “x”) of the multiplication.
The percentage is a numerical value that Excel works easily in the spreadsheet. If you enter 65%, select any cell and type the two numbers in a row and the% sign, then when you press Enter on the computer keyboard, Excel recognizes 65 as a percentage.
Excel automatically applies the percentage format to the cell and tells you that it recognized the value as a percentage, but if you change the cell format to General it will recognize the numeric value as a decimal after doing the division.
So when entering a percentage with the% symbol in any cell, Excel will recognize it as a numeric value.
Therefore you get s the `percentage of an amount with Excel, you will multiply the amount by the percentage to be obtained.
For example, on a value of 200 placed in cell A2, to get the percentage of this value you multiply both.
You enter the percentage to obtain in cell B2 and do the multiplication between the two in cell C2.
In short, to get the percentage it is always necessary to divide between the value of which the percentage needs to be found, for example 10/1000 = 100, that is, 10% of 1000 is 100.