Notion Formulas: Beginner to Advanced (2023)

This post is all about using Notion and learning about the Formulas from beginner to advanced level. 

In this post, we will look at the formulas you will need to use from beginner to advanced level that will help you ace your game in using Notion.

On this page, we will cover Constants, Operators, and Functions that we will use from the Notion editor.

This will be a quick and easy reference to use when you are looking to use Notion formulas in your regular life.

Let’s get started.

What are the terms commonly used in Notion Formulas?

These are the most commonly used terms when you are using a Notion Formula:

Terms	Use	Link
Property	Properties are the individual data points or attributes that we get to refer to in a particular page or a database entry we create.	Read More
Constant	These are those values that remain the same and don’t change their values in the database. Some of the most commonly used constants are e and π or even True and False values which stay the same.	Read More
Operator	An operator is a symbol or a keyword that can be used to operate Notion. As an example operators are symbols such as if, add, subtract, multiply, divide, pow, mod, unaryMinus, and so on.	Read More
Function	Functions refer to the pre-built operations or actions that can be used to manipulate or perform any tasks on data within a database or a page. These functions are designed in a way to simplify the process of organizing, processing, and analyzing information that is required in a database. Some of the commonly used functions are concat, join, slice, length, format, etc.

What are the 4 types of data types used in Notion

Some of the common data types used in Notion are as follows:

Data Type	Use
String	These are the text-based content that is used in Notion such as “I love Notion” or “Notion is the best productive tool”.
Number	These are numeric characters that are used for mathematical operations such as 1 or 2 or 21 etc.
Boolean / Checkbox	These are true or false values that are used to validate operations in Notion.
Date	Date values used in Notion are commonly used to find due dates or dates of events in Notion. An example of representation of a date in Notion is April 1, 2023.

Tip: Notion can work with a single data set at one time while working on any formula. Thus for finding values about multiple data sets, one needs to convert the same to get the correct results.

Eg: Let’s say we are looking to calculate the sum of Text 1 and Text 2 over here. Here we have got 2 text properties over here which are “10” and “20”. 

If we want to add these 2 numbers, we would first need to convert these 2 properties to numbers and then add the same.

To convert the text to a number, we would use toNumber(Text) to convert the text to a number and then add the 2 texts together.

Thus the formula that would work over here would be:

toNumber(prop(“Text 1”)) + toNumber(prop(“Text 2”))

What are arguments used within a function in a database

Arguments are the inputs or data that we provide within a function for performing various tasks in Notion.

Let’s start discussing the formulas one by one.

What are the constants used in Notion?

Here’s a quick overview of constants used in Notion:

Constants	Use	Syntax
e	The base of the natural logarithm	e
pi	The ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter	pi
true	Returns true values	true ? “yes”: “no” == “yes”
false	Returns false values	false ? “yes”: “no” == “no”

Let’s discuss each of them one by one:

1. e

This is a mathematical constant known by e whose value is approximately equal to 2.718281828459045. 

Here’s an example of the use of the same.

In the above example, we have multiple e with 1 and we have obtained the value of the constant e in the output.

Here’s the formula used for the same:

prop(“Number”) * e

2. pi

This provides a circle’s circumference to its diameter value.

Here’s an example of the use of the same.

In the above example, we have provided pi inside the formula.

This gives the value of pi as follows:

3.14159265359

This provides the exact value of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.

3. true

This returns the true value as a checkbox inside the database.

Here’s an example of the same.

In the above example, we have provided true as a parameter in the formula and it calculates the value as a checkbox (not empty).

4. false

This returns the false value as a checkbox inside the database.

Here’s an example of the same.

In the above example, we have provided false as a parameter in the formula and it calculates the value as a checkbox (empty).