How to Use the Large Function in Microsoft Excel

In Microsoft Excel the "Large" function gives your the ability to check a range of values and return a ranking of those values.

For instance in this tutorial you are going to see a column of numbers, and we are going to return the largest number, the second largest number and the third largest number from that column.

Here is how you use the "Large" function in Microsoft Excel.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Microsoft Excel

1. 

   Launch Microsoft Excel and create a new blank worksheet. Look at the picture associated with this step and set up your worksheet the same way so you can follow along with this tutorial.

2. 

   In cell "D1" we want to display the largest value in our list. In order to do that type in the function:
   =Large(a2:a15,1)
   
   What this says is look in column A, start with cell 2 and search through column a cell 15 (the "a2:a15" portion of the function) and return the largest value of that list (the "1" portion of the function).
   
   Your sheet should look similary to the picture associated with this step.

3. 

   Repeat step two for cells D2 (2nd Place) and D3 (3rd Place) and change the second parameter of the function to 2 and 3 respectively. So cell D2 would look like:
   =Large(a2:a15,2)
   
   and cell D3 would look like:
   =Large(a2:a15,3)
   
   If you have been following this tutorial your results should look the same as the picture associated with this step.

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