The Excel Mina function is very similar to the Excel Min Function.
The only difference between the two functions arises when an argument is supplied to the function as a reference to a cell or an array of cells.
In this case the Min Function function ignores logical and text values, while the Mina function counts the logical value TRUE as 1, the logical value FALSE as 0 and text values as 0.
The Excel MINA function returns the smallest value from a supplied set of numeric values, while counting text and the logical value FALSE as the value 0 and counting the logical value TRUE as the value 1.
The syntax of the function is:
where the number arguments are one or more numeric values (or arrays of numeric values), that you want to return the smallest value of.
In current versions of Excel (Excel 2007 & later), you can provide up to 255 number arguments to the Mina function, but in Excel 2003, the function can only accept up to 30 number arguments.
Cell B1 of the following spreadsheet shows the Excel Mina function, used to retrieve the smallest value from the set of values in cells A1-A5.
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Formulas:
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Results:
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Cell B1 of the following spreadsheet shows the Excel Mina function, used to retrieve the smallest value from the set of values in cells A1-A3.
Note that, the value TRUE in cell A1 of the spreadsheet is treated as the numeric value 1 by the Mina function. Therefore, this is the smallest value in the range A1-A3.
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Formulas:
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Results:
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Further examples of the Excel Mina function are provided on the Microsoft Office website.
If you get an error from the Excel Mina Function, this is likely to be the #VALUE! error:
| #VALUE! | - | Occurs if any values that are supplied directly to the Mina function are non-numeric. |