You can sum a series of numbers in Microsoft Excel manually by typing in a simple formula, or automatically with a tool.

SUM is the spreadsheet equivalent of an open invite: it welcomes everything into the total, whether it belongs there or not.

As a long-term Excel enthusiast, I have always enjoyed using VLOOKUP, one of Excel's best-known lookup functions. However, Microsoft's introduction of XLOOKUP in 2019 changed everything.