Excel spreadsheet for calculating molar masses and percent composition

Over a decade ago I made a Quatro-Pro  spreadsheet to make quick calculations from masses on the periodic table. Well, now Excel rules the roost, so I created a similar version  using Excel. The fundamental element of the spreadsheet is that the cell with each mass is given a name that is the symbol for the element. So, for example, instead of having to remember which cell the mass of oxygen is in (C9, in this case), you only need to type in O.

The only element that doesn’t work with its symbol is carbon. Excel will not allow a cell to be named just “C”, so I had to use “CC” instead.

Examples

• To calculate the mass of water, just type if =h*2+o (letters can be UPPER or lower case)
• For hydrochloric acid, type =h+cl
• Copper nitrate: =Cu+N*2+O*6
• Carbon dioxide =CC+O*2 (this is an example of the carbon exception from above).

Screenshot

The spreadsheet

• molecular-masses-and-percent-composition-calculator version 1.0 (November 22, 2016)
• Google Sheets version.
• If I can find my old Quatro-Pro version, I’ll post it here 🙂

Video overview