IF is the most used Excel function out there. Here are 10 advanced IF tricks to take your formulas to next-level 🚀
In this article, you will learn:
- Only one of, two out of three type rules
- Between condition check with MEDIAN
- Replacing Nested IF with shorter function
- Using boolean logic to replace IF formulas
- Arrays with IF function
- Wildcard checks with IF function
- How to use IF formula in other places
- Conditional formatting
- Data validation
- Charts
Sample data for the examples
All examples in this article use below sample data. Assume it is in the range C8:G23
You can download this data alone for practice purpose from here.
Includes sample data for practice, completed Excel workbook
#1 - Only one of condition
Situation
Identify employees who are only one of gender=male or salary under $85,000
Formula
=IF(XOR(D8="Male",G8<85000),"Include", "Exclude")
Explanation
XOR function will return TRUE if an odd number inputs are TRUE, else FALSE.
So, our XOR(D8=”Male”, G8<85000) will be useful for checking only one of condition.
Note: XOR doesn’t work when you want to check only one of when you have more than 2 conditions. For that refer to next trick.
Also read: Either Or formula in Excel
#2 - Two out of Three Check
Situation
Flag employees when they meet any two out of below three conditions.
- Department is Website
- Year of join is 2019
- Salary is above $90,000
Formula
=IF((E8="Website")+(YEAR(F8)=2019)+(G8>90000)>=2,
"Include", "Exclude")
Explanation
The trick is in understanding Excel treats TRUE as 1 and FALSE as 0.
So, the expression (E8=”Website”)+(YEAR(F8)=2019)+(G8>90000)
will be converted a bunch of 1s & 0s and added up, depending on the details of employee.
We can then simply check if such number is >=2 to see if any two out of three conditions are met.
#3 - Using MEDIAN for Between Condition
Situation
Identify employees joined between 1-Jan-2019 and 30-Jun-2019.
Formula
=IF(MEDIAN(F8,DATE(2019,1,1),DATE(2019,6,30))=F8,
"Review","")
Explanation
Normally, we use AND() function to check for between condition. But, you can also use MEDIAN for this.
The pattern goes like,
=MEDIAN(your value, above, below) = your value
The above will be TRUE if your value is between above and below values.
For example, =MEDIAN(7, 3,9) = 7 is TRUE.
Read more: How to write BETWEEN formula in Excel
#4 - Replacing Nested IF functions
Situation
Calculate staff bonus based on below rules:
- 1% for Website staff
- 3 % for Sales staff joined in 2018
- 2% for others
Formula
=IFS(E8="Website",1%,
AND(E8="Sales",YEAR(F8)=2018),3%,
TRUE,2%)
Explanation
Nested IF functions can be hard to write and tricky to maintain. That is why, you should use the newly introduced IFS() function.
The syntax for IFS goes like this:
=IFS(condition1, value1, condition2, value2…)
But, IFS() doesn’t have ELSE option…?
Well, you can use TRUE as last condition to fix this.
In the above formula TRUE, 2% part handles the ELSE case beautifully.
#5 - Boolean Logic to avoid IF formulas
Situation
Calculate staff bonus based on below rules, but don’t use any IF formulas:
- 1% for Website staff
- 3 % for Sales staff joined in 2018
- 2% for others
Formula
=2% - (E8="Website")*1% + AND(E8="Sales",YEAR(F8)=2018)*1%
Explanation
You can use boolean logic checks to altogether avoid IF formulas. This works well when your outputs are numbers.
The above formula calculates staff bonus by using TRUE=1 & FALSE=0 notion.
Let’s test it out for below staff:
For Gigi:
- 2% – (FALSE)*1% + (TRUE)* 1% = 3%
For Curtice:
- 2% – (FALSE)*1% + (FALSE)*1% = 2%
Read more: Daniel Ferry’s excellent I heart IF
#6 - Checking if a value is in another list
Situation
Check if an employee is part of on call support team
(range: C32:C36)
Formula
=IF(COUNTIFS($C$32:$C$36,C8),"On call","Not on call")
Explanation
We can use COUNTIFS or MATCH functions to do this. I prefer COUNTIFS.
Just count if a given data point is in another list.
Why don’t we check >0?
Remember, Excel treats any number other than 0 as TRUE. So we don’t need to write COUNTIFS($C$32:$C$36,C8)>0.
#7 - Arrays with IF formula
Situation
Calculate median salary of website staff
Formula
=MEDIAN(IF(E8:E23="Website",G8:G23))
Explanation
When you use arrays in the IF formula, it will return an array of outcomes too.
So for eg. =IF({TRUE,TRUE,FALSE}, {1, 2, 3}, {“A”,”B”,”C”}) will return {1, 2, “C”}
We can use this powerful idea to calculate median salary of website staff too.
What about ELSE part? It’s missing no?
If you don’t mention the ELSE part of IF formula, it will simply return FALSE for those values.
So, in our case, we get
{FALSE;90700;48950;FALSE;FALSE;107700;…FALSE}
When MEDIAN reads those values, it will ignore the FALSEs and calculate MEDIAN for rest.
Read more: Calculating RANKIFS with Excel
Situation 2
Show all names of “Finance” staff in one cell, comma seperated.
Formula
=TEXTJOIN(",",,IF(E8:E23="Finance",C8:C23,""))
Explanation
This works same as the MEDIAN(IF()) structure. For more applications of this technique, see the Excel Risk Map
#8 - Wildcard based conditions
Situation
Identify if an employee’s name contains letters bo
Formula
=IF(COUNTIFS(C8,"*bo*"),"bo person","not a bo person")
Explanation
IF function is not aware of wildcards. But we can use one of the other wildcard aware functions inside IF to solve the problem. You can use either of XLOOKUP, XMATCH, MATCH, VLOOKUP, COUNTIFS for this.
I prefer COUNTIFS.
The COUNTIFS(C8, “*bo*”) will be 1 if name in C8 has bo in it, else 0.
Rest is self-explanatory.
Read more: Making VLOOKUP formula go wild | Not so wild lookups
#9 - IF formula with Conditional Formatting
Situation
Highlight employees that meet conditions specified in below cells.
Rule
=AND($E8=$J$50,$D8=$J$51)
Explanation
When checking rules in conditional formatting you don’t need to use IF formula. Just use the condition part of the formula alone.
Here is the result of our rule.
#10 - Using IF with Charts
Situation
Make a chart with employee salaries, but highlight staff making above average salary in a different color.
Process
- Add an extra column in your data and use IF formula to check if a person’s salary is above average.
- Make chart with both original salary & the new column.
- Overlap the bars (or columns) 100%
- Color them accordingly.
Formula
=IF(G8>AVERAGE($G$8:$G$23),G8,NA())
Outcome
Resources - File & Video
Includes sample data for practice, completed Excel workbook
Watch the video & learn these techniques
More on IF formula
Resources
Check out below tutorials to master IF formulas & business logic
Homework problems
Use these homework problems to sharpen your if muscle.
What is your favorite IF formula trick?
Share it in the comments. Let’s learn from each other.
11 Responses to “Fix Incorrect Percentages with this Paste-Special Trick”
I've just taught yesterday to a colleague of mine how to convert amounts in local currency into another by pasting special the ROE.
great thing to know !!!
Chandoo - this is such a great trick and helps save time. If you don't use this shortcut, you have to take can create a formula where =(ref cell /100), copy that all the way down, covert it to a percentage and then copy/paste values to the original column. This does it all much faster. Nice job!
I was just asking peers yesterday if anyone know if an easy way to do this, I've been editing each cell and adding a % manually vs setting the cell to Percentage for months and just finally reached my wits end. What perfect timing! Thanks, great tip!
If it's just appearance you care about, another alternative is to use this custom number format:
0"%"
By adding the percent sign in quotes, it gets treated as text and won't do what you warned about here: "You can not just format the cells to % format either, excel shows 23 as 2300% then."
Dear Jon S. You are the reason I love the internet. 3 year old comments making my life easier.
Thank you.
Here is a quicker protocol.
Enter 10000% into the extra cell, copy this cell, select the range you need to convert to percentages, and use paste special > divide. Since the Paste > All option is selected, it not only divides by 10000% (i.e. 100), it also applies the % format to the cells being pasted on.
@Martin: That is another very good use of Divide / Multiply operations.
@Tony, @Jody: Thank you 🙂
@Jon S: Good one...
@Jon... now why didnt I think of that.. Excellent
Thank You so much. it is really helped me.
Big help...Thanks
Thanks. That really saved me a lot of time!
Is Show Formulas is turned on in the Formula Ribbon, it will stay in decimal form until that is turned off. Drove me batty for an hour until I just figured it out.