IF Function in Microsoft Excel 2013

In an If…Then…Else statement, one or more conditions are checked. If the condition is found to be True, the statements following the if statement are executed. If the condition is found to be False, each Else If statement (if any) is evaluated in order. When a True else-if condition is found, the statements immediately following the associated Else-If are executed. If there are no Else-If statements, the statements following Else are executed.

The IF condition is acommonly used function in Excel that you are likely to come across.It becomes important that you know how to write these statements.

You may also need to write a Nested IF statement which are complicated to look at, but are simple the moment you understand the concept.

A Nested IF statement will look like this:

=IF(“if this condition stated here is true”, then enter “this value, else if(“if this condition stated here is true”, then enter “this value, else enter “this value”))

Now lets understand the If function.

IF: Checks whether a condition is met, and returns one value if TRUE, and another value if FALSE

Syntax =IF(logical_test,value_if_true,value_if_false)

Parameters:

Logical test is the condition or a value that you want to test.

value_if_true is optional. It is the value that is returned if the condition is TRUE.

value_if_false is optional. It is the value that is returned if the condition is FALSE.

For example – We have marks in column A and we need to get the Grade in column B. The various grades are given below -

If the marks are greater than or equal to 90, the function returns Grade A

If the marksare greater than or equal to 75, the function returns Grade B

If the marksare greater than or equal to 60, the function returns Grade C

If the marks are greater than or equal to 40, the function returns Pass

If the marks are less than 40, the function returns Fail

Lets take another Example of Nested if to understand more:

Column A contains Dates

Today’s date is 24-Jun-2014

Column B will contain theresult as shown in the below screenshot

The formula in cell B2=IF (A2>TODAY (),"Future Date",IF(A2<TODAY(),"Past Date","Today"))

The If condition will check if the Date in cell A2 is greater than today’s date

If the condition is found to be true, then it will proceed further &it will return “Future Date” in column B.

If the condition is found to be false, thenit will jump to the next if condition & check if that is true or false & return the output. So in the 2^nd if condition, it will check if the Date is less than today’s date. If it is true, it will return “Past Date”, else it will return “Today” in column B.