How to Calculate Standard Deviation in Excel

Launch Microsoft Excel. Click or double-click on the Microsoft Excel app, which features a white "X" logo on a dark green background. The Excel launch page will appear.

• If you already have an Excel file containing the data you need, double-click on the document to open it in Excel, then proceed to the "Click on a blank cell" step.

Click on Blank Workbook. This option is located at the top-left corner of the Excel launch page.

Enter the values you wish to use. Select the column where you want to input data, then type the data into each cell within that column.

• For example, if you choose column "A" as the input area, you can enter numbers into cells A1, A2, A3, and so on.

Click on a blank cell. This will be the cell where you want the standard deviation value to appear. You need to click on this cell to select it.

Enter the standard deviation formula. The formula you need to input into the blank cell is =STDEV.P( ), where "P" stands for "Population." The population standard deviation is calculated based on the total number of data points (N).

• If you want to find the standard deviation for a sample group, you should enter =STDEV.S( ). The sample standard deviation is calculated using the number of data points minus 1 (N-1).

Add the value range. Between the parentheses, enter the letter and number of the cell containing the first data point, followed by a colon (:), and then the letter and number of the last data cell.

• For instance, if you entered data into column "A" from row 1 to 10, the formula would be =STDEV.P(A1:A10).
• If you only want to display the standard deviation for scattered cells like A1, B3, and C5, enter the cell names separated by commas (e.g., =STDEV.P(A1,B3,C5)).

Press ↵ Enter. Excel will execute the formula and display the standard deviation for the selected cells.