Doing so is even easier inMicrosoftExcel because there are built-in functions you’ve got the option to use.

What Is the Tangent Angle?

This is the distance of the side that’soppositefrom the tangent angle.

A compass for measuring angles

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This is 10 divided by 5, or 0.5.

To find the value for the angle, you oughta take the arctangent of 0.5.

The formula returns the angle in radians, which your boss probably won’t understand.

Example of using Arctangent function in Excel

You’ll want to convert radians to degrees by multiplying it by 180/pi.

Excel also has a PI function you’re free to use for this purpose.

The answer, in this case, is 63.43 degrees.

An example of converting radians to degrees in Excel.

This means you’ll need to adjust one of the lengths until the angle is precisely 70 degrees.

You only know that the ladder is 15 feet and that it’s placed five feet from the wall.

Excel has two other functions that you might use to calculate the angle.

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The ladder’s length is thehypotenuseof the triangle, and the ground distance is theadjacentside to the angle.

In this case, the angle is the arccosine of the adjacent side divided by the hypotenuse.

To calculate the angle, use the arccosine formula in Excel.

An example of using ACOS function in Excel.

For a 15 foot ladder with its base 5 feet from the wall, the angle is 70.53 degrees.

In this case, the sine of the angle is the opposite side divided by the hypotenuse.

After converting to degrees, the angle, in this case, would be 48.12 degrees.

Why Use ATAN, ACOS, or ASIN?

But if you don’t have one handy, Excel can help you make those calculations.