What is an operator sign?

An operator sign is a symbol that indicates a type of computation between cells and/or integers and is often used in the more straightforward types of calculations in Excel. Excel distinguishes four types of operator signs: arithmetic, comparison, text and reference.

Arithmetic operator signs

Sign	Name	Operation	Example
+	plus	addition	=A1+B1
–	minus	substraction or negation	=A1-B1 or -A1
*	asterisk	multiplication	=A1*B1
/	slash	division	=A1/B1
%	percent	division by 100	=A1%
^	circumflex	exponentiation	=A1^B1

Operator signs for comparison

Sign	Operation	Example
=	equals	=A1=B1
>	greater than	=A1>B1
<	smaller than	=A1<B1
=>	equal to or greater than	=A1=>B1
<=	equal to or smaller than	=A1<=B1
<>	not equal to	=A1<>B1

Text operator sign

Sign	Name	Operation	Example
&	and	connects entries to create one entry	=A1&” “&B1

Reference operator signs

Sign	Name	Operation	Example
:	colon	indicating a range	=SUM(A1:B1)
,	comma	uniting separate cell references into one reference	=SUM(A1,B1:C1,D1)
	space	intersection	=SUM(A1:B1 C1:D1)