Exploring mathematical functions
In previous Excel chapters of this book, we have introduced or built on some mathematical functions such as SUMIF and AVERAGEIFS, so we will not revisit these except to build on existing knowledge or look at other functions within the same family. Let's start the chapter off by having a look at a few functions to generate random numbers in the next section.
Generating random numbers
In this section, you will learn to understand and apply the RAND and RANDBETWEEN functions to generate random number lists and stop the result from updating in the workbook. We will also look at ways to customize the number range in workbook cells. This function is useful when you need to generate a dataset to test functions with, instead of using your own data. It is also great to generate a random list when training colleagues.
The RAND portion of the function name means random.
The main differences between these two functions are highlighted in the following...
