Comments on: How to use IF function in Excel: examples for text, numbers, dates, blanks

IF is one of the most popular and useful functions in Excel. Generally, you use an IF statement to test a condition and to return one value if the condition is met, and another value if the condition is not met. Continue reading →

Comments page 135. Total comments: 4830

  1. Hi Svetlana,

    I tried your formula here below to replace a text into a number and it works fine.
    But I do not actually know how to make it work for different datas on the same colomn.
    Let me quickly explain.
    I'm collecting in 1 sheet customers feedbacks from 7 different languages (sheets).
    So in the same colomn A, I have "Yes, Oui, Ja, Si, No, Non, Nein...." answers.
    The formula works fine for 1 language "=IF(A2="SI",1,0)" but do not know how to add the others..I would need number 1 to appear if it's an answers "Yes, Ja, Si, oui.. and a 0 if it's a "Non, No, Nain...".
    Any idea how can I compile all of this in one formula please?
    That would be much appreciated if you could help with this.

    Thanks a lot,

    Erin

  2. if i5 is less then D5 value is zero and if D5 is greater then I5 value is D5 is show

    1. =IF(I5<D5, 0, D5)

      The formula will return 0 if I5<D5, and the value in D5 if I5>=D5. If you are looking for something different, please clarify.

  3. I am doing an excel on monthly growth of values based on employees. Issue is some people start during the month and some quit. So I have some people with no value at the beginning of the month and other with no value at the end. I do not want those to show up as values.

    A B C D
    1 1/1/15 2/1/15 Growth Percentage
    2 225,749 248,324 200,471 88.8%
    3 420,284 420,284 0%
    4 48,744 -48,744 0%

    For D2, I did =IF(OR(A2="",B2=""),,(B2-A2)/ABS(A2)) which gives me the percentage of growth through the month and returns 0% if either is blank. Can I make column D actually be blank instead of showing 0%? Or, I want to show a total average growth at the bottom of column D without being penalized for all the 0%. If D5 was going to be the "average" cell, could I do =AVERAGE(D2:D4) but somehow tell it to not include the cells which have a value of 0%? Some people have a negative percentage and I need to include those.

    1. Well that table got all messed up after submitting it. Column A is 1/1/15's value, column B is 2/1/15's value, column C is the growth from 1/1 to 2/1 and column D is the percentage that they grew (or dropped) over the month.

      1. Hi Doug,

        I would add "" to value_if_true to return an empty string if either A2 or B2 is blank.

        =IF(OR(A2="",B2=""),"",(B2-A2)/ABS(A2))

  4. I need help with a if statement formulae

    The formula is:

    =IF(H18='Booking Date Log'!$J$13:$J$1048576, "Not Available", "Available")

    H18 contains a date e.g. 9/9/2015

    $J13:$J$1048576 contains a range of dates e.g. 9/9/2015 9/10/2015 ....

    True Value = "Not Available"

    False Value = "Available"

    what i need is that if H18 = any of these cells ($J13:$J$1048576) for it to come as "Not Available"

    and if H18 doesnt = any of these cells ($J13:$J$1048576) for it to come as "Available"

    Can this be done?

    thanks

    Fraz

  5. I want to write a formula where if the value in a particular cell is less then 18 I want the cell to indicate the cost is $48 but if the value is greater than 18 then I want the value to be $48 plus the value greater than 18 (or the value +30)

    if A10 < 18 then = $48.00 but if A10 < 18 then = (A10 + 30)

    Can this be done?

    1. Figured it out, thanks =IF(E225>19,E225+30,"$48.00")

  6. I want to test the value of a portion of a cell. For example: The cell says Approved: 12345 where 12345 is a changing order number, the list has Declined and Refunded transactions as well. Is there a way to test only for the word Approved without consideration of the remaining data within the field?

    1. Hello Krystalya,

      You have to use ISNUMBER and SEARCH function for partial match, like this:

      =IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("approved",A2)), "yes", "no")

      Where A2 says "says Approved: 12345".

      Please check out "Example 3. IF formula for text values with partial match" in this tutorial for full details.

  7. Hello,
    I have a workbook with multiple sheets. In column A, of sheet 1, is a list of names. I have been able to get those names to populate on sheet 2 and three using ;
    =IF(INDIRECT("Sheet1!A" & ROWS($1:1))="","",INDIRECT("Sheet1!A" & ROWS($1:1)))
    This works well to a point. What I would like to happen is when a name is deleted from column A, sheet 1, I would like the data in sheets 2 and three in the corresponding row to be deleted as well. i.e. if row 17 (A-L) on sheet 1 is deleted, then row 17 A-L) on sheets 2 and 3 will be deleted.
    Thanks

    1. There was a simple fix. Just group the sheets together. Adjust as nessasary. And then un group.

  8. Hi Guys,

    I am new to VBA. I need a VBA macro code that will convert HTML data into Text in my microsoft 2007 excel.

    one column A contain n number of rows data with HTML data I want to run a macro so it can be convert to Text data in just near by column that is B.

  9. Hi Svelana,
    How are you today. I appreciate the time you're taking to help me with my problem. I'm sure all these individual questions can be burdensome. My question is:

    I have the first 80 cells numbered 1-80 in sequence. I have this in every row as well, and then after that I have 20 columns each with a number 1-80. I wanna highlight one of the 1st 1-80 if one of the 20 cells has a number that matches it. Is this possible?

    Thank you,

    1. Hi Eddie,

      Sorry, I am not sure I fully understand your data structure. If you could post your sample workbook on our forum, our support team will do their best to help.

  10. Hi, I wanted to know how can I get numerical value for 18 and below and 46 and above
    thanks

  11. Hi,

    If you are give amount that between 6 to 10 is equal to 0.5 however I have to formulate it in such a way that below 6 it is to be number divided by 24 and above 10 it must be number divided by 24.

    If(A3>0=6=10,Number/24,"")))

    please how do I go about.

  12. I need a formula for:
    If A1=1, then B1:B4=1, otherwise B1:B4=0. If A5=1, then B5:B8=1, otherwise B5:B8=0.
    I can also do:
    If A1=1, then A2:A4=1, otherwise A2:A4=0. If A5=1, then A6:A8=1, otherwise A6:A8=0.

    When I try to copy this formula down to record 10,000 I am getting a loop error. Excel is returning:
    A1
    1
    0
    0
    0
    1
    0
    0
    0
    How can I fix this??

    1. Hi Brianna,

      Try entering the following formula in cells B1 through B4, and A2 through A4:

      =IF($A$1=1, 1, 0)

      And this one in cells B5 through B8, and A6 through A8:
      =IF($A$5=1, 1, 0)

  13. I've got two columns of numbers to compare and see if the difference is + or - 5. How would I make a formula to do that?

  14. i want a formula in excel that will return a value with it superscript Eg 1st

  15. Hi I want to use this formula with =If condition
    =RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-FIND(" ",A2,12))
    i tried many time but it not fits in.
    =if(A2<len(9),"Write your full name,RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-FIND(" ",A2,12)))
    why this is not working????
    Please guide me

    1. Hi Nadeem,

      Sorry, I cannot understand what your RIGHT formula does. Can you explain in words?

      Anyway, the IF function may look similar to this:

      =IF(LEN(A2)<9,"Write your full name", RIGHT())

      It returns "Write your full name" when A2 contains less than 9 characters. Otherwise, what is it supposed to return?

  16. I am trying to run an IF formula this is what I was trying to do =IF(A1>0,[A1=B1],[A1=0])
    Basically if cell A1 is greater than zero I want the cell to be replaced with the data from cell B1, however if cell A1 is not greater than zero I want the cell to equal zero.
    Can someone please help?!!!

    1. Hi Mel,

      You don't want square brackets in IF formulas:

      =IF(A1>0, B1, 0)

  17. Hi, i am wondering if it can be done when i sale an item and lets say inventory is 20 so i sold one and inventory changes to 19 i want a column to go plus every minus i do in the inventory.

  18. Hello Rupesh,

    You need a nested IF formula like this:

    =IF(A2>90, 4, IF(A2>=80, 3, IF(A2>=70,2,1)))

    1. Hi. I’m trying to figure out how to do two different calculations in a cell. Using the IF function.

      It involves 3 different cells
      If cell C3 has a number greater than 0, I multiply C3 by C1 plus the total in cell B2 to get a running total in the second row . Easy enough. My problem comes when I want to put in a 0 in C3 and then the cell has to multiply the running total by .5 (cutting the total in half).
      I’m not sure how to put both in one cell. I would appreciate any help.

      Thank you.

      P.S. this is to keep score in a dart game called Shanghai ?

  19. ( >90 then 4, 80-90 then 3, 70-80 then 2 and <70 then 1

    i tried to put a formula on this but its not working.
    can you please suggest

  20. i need help, i have data which i need to analyse, in a cell i have entered data for males and females with the figures of household size, e.g male 2 and female 3, so i need a formula to find the total of males and females separately.

  21. I need to use IF function on below case;

    If one item is available from a column, then Yes or else No. Please advise the fuction.

    1. Hi Jay,

      Here is an example:

      =IF(A1="item you want", "yes", "no")

  22. hi,

    In my data all the values are in Indian currency in rupees. While I create pivot table summary, all the values comes with in rupees. But I needs those figure should come in Lacs.

    Thanks in advance.

  23. HI,

    I WANT TO CREATE IN EXCEL 2007 Which shows that in a selected cell (specifically Column K in spreadsheet in each cell downwards)if I will type a Value on it(numbers. 1-9) it will correspond to a word. say for example 1 means okay, 2 means not yet and etc. some sort of shortcut techniques in typing for that word. what kind of Formula should I use? Please let me know.

    Thanks Svetlana!

    1. Hi JAS,

      You can use nested IF functions, like this:

      =IF(A1=1, "ok", IF(A1=2, "not yet", IF(A1=3, "smth else", "")))

      Excel 2007 allows adding up to 64 nested IF in one formula.

      1. Great, thanks a lot!

  24. I created a quiz and used data validation. I want to get 1 mark for the answer of 42 otherwise 0. I used if(A4="42", 1,0).it give me 0. am I using wrong syntax

    1. Hi Istkar,

      You don't need to enclose numbers in double quotes unless you want them to be treated as text strings. Once you remove "", your formula will work great:
      =IF(A4=42,1,0)

  25. can you help with the below:
    i am creating a sheet for associates in my company. 1 tab has all details of the associate that a company database should have. column 'F' has the designation of the associate and column "A" has names
    what i want to do (in another tab in the same excel). wherever column "F" has designation as manager the cell in the new tab should show me the name of that associate.
    eg: if cell value f4=manager then value in new cell (in new tab) should be name as in A4.

    i want the same to be applied to every cell.

    1. Hi Ankit,

      Hopefully, this is what you are looking for:
      =IF(F4="manager", A4, "")

  26. How many times i can add IF in one formula.

    1. In Excel 2013, Excel 2010 and Excel 2010, you can add up to 64 nested IF functions. In older versions of Excel, you can use a maximum of 7 IFs in one formula.

  27. Hi, Svetlana!
    I'm trying to make an Excel 2013 formula that will extract a person's last name from a cell that has their full name. Unfortunately, the fullname cell can contain any of these formats:
    First Last
    First M. Last
    F. Middle Last
    F. Middle Second_middle Last Jr.

    The formula to extract the last name form a "First Last" cell is easy (where A5 is the fullname cell):
    =RIGHT(A5,LEN(A5)-FIND(" ",A5))
    ...but I need to be able to find the last instance of a space character to lead off the RIGHT() function location. That would work for the first three examples, but not the last. Not sure what to do about that one, unless maybe an exclusion list of common suffix titles?

    I'd be most interested in your help.
    Cheers!
    Ted

  28. I have created a spreadsheet for working out the pay of our employees. The data starts in Row 14. Col A contains that week's pay date eg. 24/3/15 etc. Col B has the total hours the employee has worked that week. Column C then multiplies the hours from Col B by the employees pay rate to give me their gross pay for that week. Cols D-F contain various deductions relevant to that employee & Col G lists net pay. Following that there are 4 more rows containing the above info with the hours listed as 0 unless it is used for that week's pay, and the sixth row adds up the totals for that month & displays them as *??.??.

    In cell b3 I want a formula that tells me how many hours the employee worked in the last 4 weeks e.g..it will look down column B, find the last hours entry (ie. the last number that is greater than 0 & does not have an *), then add to this number the previous 3 weeks hours (ie. the previous 3 numbers greater than 0 & without an *). If it makes it easier I am happy to enter in the cell reference that contains the last hours entry (rather than Excel working that out) as I am not going to need this information on a regular basis.

    In cell b4 I want to do do the same thing as b3 except i want to know how many hours the employee worked in the last 52 weeks (or if they haven't actually worked 52 weeks yet, their total hours so far).

    I'm sure that this is not actually a difficult formula to write but excel is not my forte! Please let me know if you need further clarification.

  29. Thanks a lot Svetlana that worked as expected :)

    Cheers

  30. I've two columns A & B, out of this i want to check against A column name if B column is not blank then it should show complete else Partial, for more understanding see below example

    C-A C-B Output
    A ABC12 Complete
    A 105 Complete
    A 13 Complete
    B 213 Partial
    B ABC12 Partial
    B Partial

    1. Hi Rajendra,

      I am afraid our blog engine has made a mess of your data :( I understand about B column being non-blank. But exactly what shall we check against A column?

  31. If somebody can please help me.
    Mentioned below is my problem
    I have a time format and I am trying to put an If formula which should give me a yes or no if its greater than or equal to a specific time

    FOR EXAMPLE:
    If (04:07:47)is greater than or equal to (04:00:00)then YES else NO

    1. Hi Raymond,

      If both times are entered in some cells, then you can use a simple IF formula like this:

      =IF(A2>=B2, "yes", "no")

      Where B2 is 04:00:00.

      If you want to specify one of the values directly in the formula, then you will need the TIMEVALUE function is addition to IF:

      =IF(A2>=TIMEVALUE("4:00:00"), "yes", "no")

  32. Thank you Svetlana! To take this one step further and I tried couldn't get it to work

    =IF(A1="put",C1-B1,IF(A1="call",B1-C1,"")) then take answer of this and calculate the difference between the answer and D1 *100* E1

    1. This is more in line with what I was thinking all wrapped up in one formula - =IF(A1="put",C1-B1,IF(A1="call",B1-C1,"")) --- This is the first operation

      IF cell O25 is a positive number subtract U25 or IF cell O25 is a negative number add U25 --- This is the second operation

      How would you write them separate and within on formula sequence?

      Thank you again!

      1. Hi Jason,

        Please specify if these are AND or OR conditions?

        For example, if A1="put" and O25 is a positive number, then what do we do?

        If A1="put" and O25 is a negative number, then... ?

        And the same for A1="call", please.

        1. What I believe I'm trying to do is calculate the positive or negative variance (on a non absolute basis)

          My apologies, so I have your formula =IF(A1="put",C1-B1,IF(A1="call",B1-C1,"")) ... in column "U"

          And in column "V" I'm trying to calculate the actual difference between cell O25 and U25(i.e. Add if a number is negative, Subtract if a number is positive)say if U25 Is positive and O25 in positive then O25-U25 or if U31 is negative and O31 is positive then U31+O31

          I was also would like to combine this formula with your =IF(A1="put",C1-B1,IF(A1="call",B1-C1,""))

          1. Let me check if my understanding is correct. If values in both columns U and O are positive, then O25-U25. If a value in either column or in both columns are negative, then U325+O25. If so, I would suggest that you keep the formula in column U as is and put the following one in column V (it is actually for cell V25, but you can easily adjust the references:
            =IF(AND(U25>0, O25>0), O25-U25, U25+O25)

            Also, please note that the formula equates zero to negative numbers. If you want to treat 0 as a positive number, then change the logical test to AND(U25>=0, O25>=0)

            If I misunderstand something, please correct me.

            1. Nope you made my nonsense into sense;-) So in that last formula =IF(AND(U25>0, O25>0), O25-U25, U25+O25)... how would I make any negative result display 0 and any positive result show the full value of the calculation?

  33. i need help putting this in the if function, if an employee has a taxable income of greater $739, then the federal income equals $110.85 plus the federal tax rate found in cell B19 multiply by the taxable income excess of $739. if an employee taxable income is $739 or less, the federal tax witheld equals the taxable income multiplied by the federal taxrate found in b18

  34. HOW TO MULTIPLY ONE VALUE OF A CELL BY THE PERCENT OF ANOTHER CELL

    1. Hi Thello,

      For example like this:
      =A1*(A1*10%)

      If you are looking for something different, please provide a bit more details.

  35. Hi Svetlana how would you write this all in the same cell ... (If Cell A1 says “PUT” then Subtract cell B1 from C1 OR If Cell A1 says “CALL” then Subtract C1 from B1)

    1. Hi Jason,

      You need a nested IF like this:
      =IF(A1="put",C1-B1,IF(A1="call",B1-C1,""))

  36. Hi,
    I'm trying to get my formula to say if I5=Y or N/A then 0 value, if not then 1 value. I'm using this: If(I5="Y""N/A",0,1) but I'm getting the value 0 no matter what's in I5. I5 is either Y, N, or N/A, and I only want it to populate when there's an "N". I thought the problem was that "N" and "N/A" both contain "N", but I typed in "fill" to test and still 0 value. Please help. Thanks!

    1. Hi Felicia,

      Since you have 2 conditions, you should include the OR statement in your formula, like this:

      =IF(OR(I5="Y", I5="N/A"), 0, 1)

  37. I am trying to populate a cell with the description "Current", "30 Days" and so forth.

    I know I can use this Formula

    =IF(L2>0,, "Current")
    =IF(L2>30,, "30 Days")
    =IF(L2>60,, "60 Days")
    =IF(L2>90,, "90 Days")
    =IF(L2>120,, "120 Days")

    How do I make a full sentence (Combining all) of this so i don't have to do this individually?

  38. Hi,

    How can I restrict the cell in excel, where user have to enter the date in "MM/DD/YYYY" format only.

  39. How could we change the color of the Cell if the logical_test is true or false?
    Thank you.

  40. Hi,

    in column A user will be entering date. In column B the month will get updated automatically with =Month(A1) function.
    Now I want if the cell of A column is blank, then in column B will be showing "-" & the moment user enter the date it will return the month.

    What would be the formula in excel... pl surrgest

    1. Hi!

      I believe this is what you are looking for:

      =IF(A1="", "-", MONTH(A1))

  41. =if(A1=12," ","12"),if(A1=8,"16"),if(A1=16,"8")

    can anyone fix it... it will a very helpfull for me...

    thank you very much

  42. Hi there I am wondering if you can help me
    I have the following data across columns and the desired outcome would be merge the cells sideways into a new cell and delete the duplicates.
    Column J Column K Column L etc
    Row 2: Article sign up | City1 | City2 = Article sign up, city 1, city 2
    Row 3: Article Sign up | Article sign up | City 1 | City 1 = Article sign up, city 1
    Row 4: Article sign up | Article sign up | City 2 | City 2 = Article sign up, city 2

    Can you help?

  43. Hello everyone,
    I'm looking for a formula that looks at date ranges - so if the date of the line item is between 'date 1' and 'date 2' then display the line item in on a separate sheet.
    Similarly if the date of the line item is NOT within 'date 1' and 'date 2' then display the line item on another sheet.

    Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

    1. Hi Lorna,

      You need two different formulas like these:

      1. If between 2 dates:

      =IF(AND("line item date">date1, "line item date"<date2), "line item", "")

      2. If outside the date range (not within 2 dates):

      =IF(OR("line item date"<date1, "line item date">date2), "line item", "")

      If you can provide more details about your date structure (in what columns are dates and where are line items), I think we will get the real formula.

  44. Hi Everyone,
    Nice Day !

    All medical representative send their reports in 2 excel sheets,
    1.sales Visit – with date,product,doctors list
    2.Office Word

    now i have to compare these 2 lists and make a new report that whether they have send report or not according to names and date.

    if they send 01 mar, then i put yes
    if they not send 02 mar, then i put no

    can anyone tell me which formula can use to compare these 2 list and make it automatically “yes” and “no” according to medical rep names and dates.

    Advanced Thanks for reply

  45. it doesn´t paste all the formula.. sorry

  46. =(IF(B2=21,B2=40,B2=71,B291,"VFEL"))

  47. Hello,
    I ave a situation, i whish you can help me with: i need to work on a formula with the if funtion. i have to mark a range of values, for example: all the values are in the cell "B2"

    range: 1 - 100
    markA: 1 - 20 ( "a" )
    markB: 21 - 35 ( "b" )
    markC: 36 - 50 ( "c" )
    markD: 51 - 89 ( "d" )
    markE: 90 - 100 ( "e" )

    i have try the next formula:
    =(IF(B2=21,B2=40,B2=71,B291,"VFEL"))

    but it says the is a error, can you help out ?

    thanks

    1. Hi Ussiels,

      I am not sure I exactly understand the task, but it looks very similar to this one that can be solved using nested IFs.

      Is this what you are looking for?

  48. Hello,

    I have a due date column that is calculated at 30 days after a transfer date column. However, when I put the formula "=A1+30" in the due date column it returns a date of 01/05/1900 for rows that don't have a date entered in the transfer date column. How do I get this to stay blank unless there's a date entered in the transfer column?

    Thank you,
    Jordan

  49. Hi,
    I'm looking for a formula that will return the last value greater than 0 from a range if the cell initially referenced is equal to 0.
    Seems like it should be easy but I'm stuck on it.

    Thanks

  50. Hi,
    I want to have a formula whereby i am doing an itinerary costing. i have a start date and then dates with prices of accommodation...the dates with the price of accommodation i already have IF(B3=DATE(2015,1,1),"7500","0").....

    Now I want to have a formula where by I when the start date of the itinerary changes, then all the dates in the in the itinerary change and this change in starting date will also lead to a change on the prices.

    Thanks

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