A to Z of Excel Functions: The MAXA Function

Welcome back to our regular A to Z of Excel Functions blog. Today we look at the MAXA function.

The MAXA function

The MAXA function returns the largest value in a list of arguments.  It has the following syntax:

where:

• value1 is required and represents the first number argument for which you want to find the largest value
• value2, ... are optional arguments.  These are numerical arguments 2 to 255 for which you want to find the largest value.

It should be noted that:

• arguments may be any of the following: numbers; names, arrays or references that contain numbers; text representations of numbers; logical values, such as TRUE and FALSE, in a reference
• logical values and text representations of numbers that you type directly into the list of arguments are counted
• if an argument is an array or reference, only values in that array or reference are used.  Empty cells and text values in the array or reference are ignored
• arguments that are error values or text that cannot be translated into numbers cause errors
• arguments that contain TRUE evaluate as 1; arguments that contain text or FALSE evaluate as zero (0)
• if the arguments contain no values, MAXA returns zero (0)
• if you do not want to include logical values and text representations of numbers in a reference as part of the calculation, use the MAX function instead.

Please consider the following example:

We’ll continue our A to Z of Excel Functions soon. Keep checking back – there’s a new blog post every business day.

A full page of the function articles can be found here.