Content

• Steps
• Tips
• Warnings

This article will show you how to find the standard deviation of a dataset in Excel.

Steps

1. 1 Start Microsoft Excel. Double-click the white X on the green background. Typically, it is located on the desktop or taskbar. The Excel start page will open.
   • If you have a ready-made Excel spreadsheet with the data you want, double-click the file to open it in Excel, and then go to the "Click on a blank cell" step.
2. 2 Click on A new book. It's on the top-left side of the Excel start page.
3. 3 Enter data. Select a column, and then enter the data you want in the cells of that column.
   • For example, if you selected column "A", enter numbers in cells "A1", "A2", "A3", and so on.
4. 4 Click on an empty cell. This is the cell that displays the standard deviation value. This will select a cell.
5. 5 Enter a formula to calculate the standard deviation. In a blank cell, enter = STDEV.G (), where "G" is the general population. Population standard deviation includes all data (N).
   • To find the standard deviation of a sample, enter = STDEV.V ()... In this case, (N-1) data is taken into account.
6. 6 Enter a range of values. Within the parentheses, enter the letter and cell number followed by the first number, then enter a colon (:), and then enter the letter and cell number followed by the last number.
   • For example, if you entered the numbers in column "A" on rows 1 through 10, the formula should look like this: = STDEV.Y (A1: A10).
   • To calculate the standard deviation of multiple numbers, for example, in cells A1, B3, and C5, enter the cell addresses separated by commas (for example, = STDEV.B (A1, B3, C5)).
7. 7 Click on ↵ Enter. The formula is executed, and the standard deviation of the selected data is displayed in the formula cell.

Tips

• In most cases, the population standard deviation is calculated to include all data.

Warnings

• Old formula = STDEV () does not work in versions of Excel older than 2007.