How to rewrite excel formulas in a readable manner?

Question

I have an Excel file with formulas in this manner:

=IF(OR(ISERROR(G16),ISERROR(G17)),X16,IF(OR(G16=\"xxx\",G16=\"yyy\",G16=\"zzz\"),Y16,IF(G16=\"333\",\"N\\A\",IF(

Answer 1

As an example using helper columns, you could shorten the formula with the following

[A1] =VLOOKUP(F16,$M$36:$N$41,2,FALSE)

[B1] =HEX2DEC(W$10)

[C1] =HEX2DEC(W16)

[D1] =HEX2DEC(W17)

then the large formula is shortened to

=IF(OR(ISERROR(G16),ISERROR(G17)),X16,IF(OR(G16="xxx",G16="yyy",G16="zzz"),Y16,IF(G16="333","N\A",IF(G17="333",Z16,IF(D17="",IF((B1-C1)/A1<0,0,(B1-C1)/A1), IF((D1-C1)/A1<0,0,(D1-C1)/A1))))))

This is particularly effective when using volatile functions such as DATE or NOW which you don't want to recalc for every cell when it's the same result.

Whether it's more readable, perhaps not but you can label column headings with appropriate comments