In the workbook below we have multiple sheets, each of which contains the sales and expense data of our different store locations. The challenge is to sum up all the Denver stores and all the Colorado Springs stores. The key to success in making the this procedure work is the way the tabs are named for the stores. Because all the Denver store sheets are named something that starts with “De” and none of the other sheets have names that start with “De” we can easily and quickly build a formula that sums up only the Denver Stores. Here is how it works:
1. Enter the following formula in cell D5 of the summary sheet:
=sum('de*'!d5)
Notice that the de* is surrounded by single quotation marks and that the d does not have
to be capitalized.
2. Press enter and Excel turns the formula you typed into the following formula:
=SUM('Denver West:Denver Downtown'!D5,'Denver Airport'!D5)
