formula assistance - percentage difference
 

is this the correct forum to ask assistance for formulas
if a1 is 250 and a2 is 500 what is the formula to show the percentage
difference between the 2 cells . is there a site on the web that
offers this type of assist.

thanks

formula assistance - percentage difference
 

Hope I did not get it backwards.

Enter formula in cell B2 and format cell as percentage

=A1/A2


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formula assistance - percentage difference
 

"Dave" wrote:
if a1 is 250 and a2 is 500 what is the formula to show the percentage
difference between the 2 cells

You need to decide which "direction" that you want the percentage difference
to reflect: (1) how much more (or less) is a2 over a1 (a2 is 100% more than
a1); or (2) how much more (or less) is a1 over a2 (a1 is 50% less than a2).
Both are equally valid, depending on you want. The formulas a

(1) =a2/a1 - 1

(2) =a1/a2 - 1

FYI, these are the same as the other very common way to express these
formulas:

=(a2 - a1) / a1

=(a1 - a2) / a2

In all cases, beware of comparing with zero (i.e. a denominator of zero).
You cannot express the percentage difference between a "starting" value of
zero. Also beware of comparing two values with opposite signs (negative and
positive).