Apply a formula to an entire column in Google Sheets with the ARRAYFORMULA function | Quick Version

Key Takeaways

in this video i'm going to show you how to use the array formula function in google sheets the array formula function will let you apply a formula to an entire column or range of cells by using a single formula in a single cell so first let's start off simple here in cell c2 we have a very very simple formula which is simply a cell reference so what we're going to do is apply this formula to the entire column so that we don't have to copy and paste the formula downwards where there would be an individual formula in each cell and so how i'm going to do this is drag my cursor into the formula bar to modify the formula that's already there and what i'm going to do is after a2 i'm going to type a colon and then type a because i want to refer to the entire range a2 through a but as you'll see if i don't include the array formula function google sheets will not display the entire column like i want it to so i'm going to modify the formula again and right before the range that i typed i'm going to type array formula i'm going to type a parenthesis and press enter and now you can see the google sheets has applied this reference formula to the entire column and we're now displaying all of the names from column a in column c and we only had to use one formula to do it and again it's because we used the array formula function all right so you can also use the array formula function to perform mathematical calculations on entire columns or entire rows and so here in cell d3 we have a basic addition formula entered which is a3 plus b3 add the number from cell a3 to the number in cell b3 and again if we wanted we could copy and paste this formula downwards and sometimes it actually makes more sense to have individual formulas such as when you're using the countif function but in this case we want to use one formula to add the numbers down the entire column so i'm going to modify the formula by typing array formula and a parenthesis i'm going to change a3 to a3 colon a and b3 is going to change to b3 colon b and now we're adding the numbers down the entire column 100 plus 1 100 plus 2 row 5 6 7 and so on and now let's do the same thing for the multiplication function and now we're multiplying the numbers from columns a and b all the way down the column in each row so if you want to learn more about using the array formula function i've linked the article for this video below or you can also check out my video where i show you how to copy and paste formulas and how to use autofill to fill formulas in google sheets