In this tutorial, you will learn how to do square root in Google Sheets.
Google Sheets makes it easy to perform mathematical calculations by typing the familiar mathematical operators: +, -, * and /, for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing respectively. But what if you want to calculate square root? The square root symbol doesn’t appear on a standard keyboard, and it can’t be constructed from the simple operators above, but fortunately Google Sheets comes with a handy function for calculating square root.
Just follow the steps below
Calculate Square Root of a Number
If you want to calculate the square root of a number, here’s how:
Step 1
Select a cell and type the following formula: “=SQRT(2)”, replacing the number 2 with whatever number you want to calculate the square root of. For example, you could calculate =SQRT(438) or =SQRT(0.0932)
Step 2
Hit enter and the square root will appear in the cell. If you want to reduce the number of visible decimal places, select the cell and click on the decrease decimal places button in the toolbar as many times as desired
Calculate Square Root of a Cell Value
The powerful thing about doing calculations in Google Sheets is that you can chain them together by referencing other cells in the spreadsheet instead of a number.
Here’s how:
Step 1
Locate the cell containing the number you want to find square root of and note its cell reference (eg, a cell in column A, row 5 can be referenced as A5)
Step 2
Type the following formula to calculate the square root of the value in that cell: “=SQRT(A5)”, replacing the reference A5 with the cell reference from Step 1
Step 3
Now whenever the value in the referenced cell changes, the square root calculation will update
Summary
Example Spreadsheet: Make a copy of the example spreadsheet
In this tutorial, I covered how to do square root in Google Sheets. Want more? Check out all the Google Sheets Tutorials.