The IF statement is a useful function of Microsoft Excel that can save a great deal of time spent on analysing and annotating data manually.
It’s a versatile, advanced, formula that can be combined with other formulae where needed. This is exactly the sort of thing we’ll teach you in our Advanced Excel course.
If this is the kind of advanced Excel tip you find useful, you might also want to have a look at our tutorials on the VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP functions of Excel and Conditional Formatting in Excel.
How to Use the IF Formula in Excel
The IF formula is built on a premise of auto-populating a field with the result of a true/false test.
For example, an employer may have a bonus structure where employees get a staggered bonus payment based on how much they sell in a month. If they make more than 60 sales, they get 5 times their sales in pounds in their pay packet! If they make less than 60 sales, they get 2 times their sales.
The formula looks like this: IF (logical_test, [value_if_true], [value_if_false]).
So, using the example above, we’d say =IF(b3<60, 5, 2)
With your basic graph now on the page, you could remove all the labels and legends manually. A much quicker way is to click on ‘Chart Layouts’ in the Design tab and choose Layout 11 (no need to hover over them, it’s easily recognisable as the one that makes a sparkline as it has the least detail). 