You can use the following basic formula to calculate the sum of a range of absolute values in Excel:
=SUM(ABS(A2:A15))
This particular formula calculates the sum of absolute values in the range A2:A15.
The following example shows how to use this formula in practice.
Example: How to Sum Absolute Values in Excel
Suppose we have the following list of values in Excel:
We can type the following formula into cell C1 to calculate the sum of the absolute values in the range A2:A15:
=SUM(ABS(A2:A15))
The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:
From the output we can see that the sum of the absolute values in the range A2:A15 is 64.
We can confirm this is correct by manually calculating the sum of each absolute value in the range:
Sum of Absolute Values = 4 + 3 + 10 + 1 + 9 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 6 + 7 + 2 + 4 + 4 + 5 = 64.
This matches the value calculated by our formula.
How the Formula Works
The ABS() function in Excel calculates the absolute value of a given number.
- For example, the absolute value of -3 is 3.
The SUM() function in Excel calculates the sum of a range of numbers.
By using the formula SUM(ABS(A2:A15)) we first convert each value in the range A2:A15 to a positive number, then we calculate the sum of all of the positive numbers.
Additional Resources
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in Excel:
How to Sum Filtered Rows in Excel
How to Select Every Nth Row in Excel
How to Count Rows with Value in Excel
