How to Use Subtotals and Totals in an Excel Spreadsheet

Use Excel to automatically calculate subtotals and totals in your plans and budgets. These steps work for Microsoft Excel 97.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Excel Book
• Microsoft Excel

Creating Labels for Your Spreadsheet

1. Start Microsoft Excel and open the file you want to change.

2. Enter label titles for your columns and rows.

3. Drag over the column that contain the label titles.

4. Click B (boldface icon) on the tool bar.

5. Drag over the row that contain the label titles.

6. Click B (boldface icon) on the tool bar.

Creating Subtotals and Grand Totals

7. Drag over the columns and rows for which you want to create subtotals and grand totals.

8. Open the Data menu and select Subtotals.

9. In the Subtotal dialog box, select the columns names you want subtotaled in the "Add subtotal to" option.

10. Select OK.

Tips & Warnings

• To total a single column, use the AutoSum function (select a column and click the AutoSum button).
• In the Subtotal dialog box, ensure that the option "At each change" displays which column to use as a guide.
• The "At each change" option uses the labels you entered as a key as to which items to subtotal. It reads through the column you selected and creates a subtotal for each item with the same name. (So if you had two "Income" labels, those would be subtotaled.)
• For additional examples, see the "How to Create a Simple Budget in Excel."