Another method of calculating the total acreage is to use a prewritten formula, called a function.
You can get the total in cell B5 by clicking Sum
in the Editing group on the Home tab. This enters the SUM function, which adds up all the values in a range of cells. To save time, use this function whenever you have more than a few values to add up, so that you don't have to type the formula.
Pressing ENTER displays the SUM function result .65 in cell B5. The formula =SUM (B2:B4) appears in the formula bar whenever you click in cell B5.
B2:B4 is the information, called the argument, which tells the SUM function what to add. By using a cell reference (B2:B4) instead of the values in those cells, Excel can automatically update results if values change later on. The colon (:) in B2:B4 indicates a cell range in column B, rows 2 through 4. The parentheses are required to separate the argument from the function.