In this video, we're going to learn how to tap functions quickly using IntelliSense. IntelliSense is a shortcut for quickly and accurately entering an entire function name. And you've probably noticed this before, if I tap on equals to indicate a formula, if I start typing out a particular function, you will then see an IntelliSense list appear. It uses the first list that you tap out to provide a subset of functions that begin with that later. As we continue typing, it produces the variable list. They are all the functions that begin with the word sum.

You'll also notice that there is an option highlighted in blue, indicating that that is the current selection. We could use our down arrow keys to change that active selection. And instead of typing out the rest of the letters, we could in fact, just hit the Tab key And you'll notice that it taps out the rest of the function. And even better than that, it tops out the opening parenthesis, which as we've learned is an important starting point in the notation required for an Excel function. So once again, this process of tapping at the beginning letters of a function for example, if I, if we are looking for find, we could simply move down and hit tab, or you can even just use your mass and double click on it, Excel does the rest. Now this might not seem like a huge benefit.

However, when performing some functions, which have particularly long names, which are easy to misspell, this can come in handy. And the best example of this is the V lookup function, which you'll learn a lot about in step five. If you type equals and V four v lookup, you'll notice that there are actually not many functions that begin with V. And as soon as we top out, there is in fact, only one function that begins with vl and that's v lookup. So instead of tapping, okay, up, open parenthesis, simply hit the Tab key, and Excel does the rest of it for us. We'll see in the next video