How to Use Excel's Ceiling Function

By eHow Computers Editor

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Excel's Ceiling function rounds the specified number away from zero to the nearest multiple of the specified significance. It is closely related to the Floor function and frequently used on dollar amounts to prevent inconvenient pricing. The following steps will show how to use Excel's Ceiling function.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Step1

Learn the syntax for Ceiling. It is Ceiling (number,significance) where number is the value to be rounded and significance is the number of which Ceiling will return the nearest multiple.

Step2

Study the way Ceiling works. The value is rounded up when adjusted away from zero, regardless of the sign of the number. If the number is already a multiple of the significance, it will not be rounded.

Step3

Examine error conditions of Ceiling. Ceiling will return the #Value! error value if either of its argument are non-numeric and the #Num! error value if the number and the significance have different signs.

Step4

Observe a common use of Ceiling on a price to avoid dealing with pennies. If the price is $3.36, you can round up to the nearest nickel with the formula = Ceiling(3.36,0.05) to return a result of 3.40.

Step5

Look at other examples of Ceiling.

=Ceiling (3.5, 1) rounds 3.5 up to the nearest multiple of 1 to return 4.
=Ceiling (-4.5, -2) rounds -1.5 up (away from zero) to the nearest multiple of -2 to return -6.
=Ceiling (2.5, 0.1) returns 2.5. Note that no rounding occurs because 2.5 is already a multiple of 0.1.
=Ceiling (-2.5, 2) returns #Num! because -2.5 and 2 have different signs.