Nested Parenthese

You can also nest parentheses in formulas. Nesting means putting parentheses inside of parentheses. If you do so, excel evaluates the most deeply nested expressions first and works its way out. the following example of a formula uses nested parentheses.

=((B2*C2)+)B3*C3)+(B4*C4))*B6

This formula has four sets of parentheses. Three sets are nested inside the fourth set. Excel evaluates each nested set of parentheses and then sums the three results. This sum is then multiplied by the value in B6.

It's a good idea to make liberal use of parentheses in your formulas, even when they aren't necessary. Using parentheses clarifies the order of operations and makes the formula easier to read. For example, if you want to add 1 to the product of two cells, the following formula performs will do the job:

=A1*A2+1

You may find it much clearer, howrever, to use the following formula (with superfluous parentheses):

=(A1*A2)+1

Every left parenthesis, of course, must have a matching right parenthesis. If you have many levels of nested parentheses, you might find it difficult to keep them straight. If the parentheses don't match, excel pops up a message telling you and won't permit you to enter the formula.

Excel lends a hand in helping you match parentheses. When you enter or edit a formula that has parentheses, pay attention to the text. When the cursor moves over a parentheses, excel momentarily displays the parenthesis and its closing parenthesis in bold. This lasts for less than a second, so watch carefully.

In some cases, if your formula contains mismatched parentheses, excel may propose a correction to your formula (Excel 97 introduced this Formula AutoCorrect feature).