Beginning OpenOffice Calc: From Setting Up Simple Spreadsheets to Business Forecasting

C H A P T E R  13

Conditional Functions

All of the functions that were discussed in the previous chapters of this book work in a fairly simple way. You give them some input and they process it and return a single value. Useful, but not what we would call “smart.”

If you want your worksheets to be smart, you need to use conditional functions that can make decisions based on a set of pre-defined conditions.

Tax returns are one good example of the need for a worksheet to be smart. Let’s assume that we want to use just two cells in a sheet, one to enter the amount of money to be taxed and the other to display the amount of tax due. Use the following imaginary income tax rates:

• A tax free allowance of $5,000.
• 20% tax on any amount above $5,000. ...