The status bar in Excel is a horizontal bar located at the bottom of the Excel window. It shows information about the active cell, such as the average, count, sum, and other statistics. By default, the status bar displays basic information, but you can customize it to display the information that you need.

Introduction

The table in this example shows the sales volumes of products that belong to two categories.

To quickly find out the total or average sales and how much has been sold, you can use the SUM, AVERAGE, and COUNT formulas. However, it is faster to simply look at the status bar at the bottom of the screen. The status bar shows the total, average, and count of the selected cells, and it ignores empty cells.

Average, Count and Total are the standard settings of the status bar, but you can change them by right-clicking on the status bar. At this moment you are only interested in the options marked in the figure below a red frame.

Formatting options of the status bar

Let’s add a Minimum and Maximum. Now five additional information will be given the status bar.

Note that all calculations are made without blank cells. For example, if you delete data for 4 products that failed to sell, the average will be 17 for the remaining 6 products. The minimum sale will be 2.

To avoid such problems for products that failed to sell, enter zero. In the figure below the correct values are calculated, the average is 12 and minimum 0.

Adjusting the status bar in Excel is a simple process that allows you to customize the information displayed in the status bar. By selecting the statistics that you want to display, or by using a formula or macro, you can easily access the information that you need to effectively manage your data.

Things to Remember

• The status bar shows information about the active cell, such as the average, count, sum, and other statistics.
• By default, the status bar displays basic information, but you can customize it to display the information that you need.
• To customize the status bar, right-click on it and select the statistics that you want to display.

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