Use Autosum and Max or Min to calculate the largest or smallest value in a range. For example, you can use it to find out who has the the smallest error rate in a production run at a factory or the largest salary in the department.
If the cells are in a contiguous row or column
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Select a cell below or to the right of the numbers for which you want to find the smallest number.
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On the Home tab, select the arrow next to AutoSum in the Editing group.
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Select Min (calculates the smallest) or Max (calculates the largest), and then press ENTER.
If the cells are not in a contiguous row or column
To do this task, use the MIN, MAX, LARGE function, or LARGE functions, rather than Autosum.
Example
Copy the following Data column to a blank worksheet to column A.
1 |
Data |
2 |
10 |
3 |
7 |
4 |
9 |
5 |
27 |
6 |
0 |
7 |
4 |
Copy these formulas to the spreadsheet to show an example.
Formula |
Description (Result) |
=MIN(A2:A7) |
Smallest number in the range (0) |
=MAX(A2:A7) |
Largest number in the range (27) |
=SMALL(A2:A7, 2) |
Second smallest number in the range (4) |
=LARGE(A2:A7,3) |
Third largest number in the range (9) |
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