Excel ABS Function

What It Does

The ABS function returns the absolute value of a number.

What Is Absolute Value? + Examples

Using simple language, absolute value of a number is the same number without a minus sign.

For some people it is easiest to think of absolute value as a number’s distance from zero.

In other words, if the input number is negative, the ABS function returns the corresponding positive number, for example:

ABS(-5) = 5

If the input is non-negative, it returns the same number, for example:

ABS(8.2) = 8.2

ABS(0) = 0

Using math language:

ABS(x) = -x for x<0

ABS(x) = x for x>=0

For more detailed explanation of absolute value, see Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_value

Excel ABS Function Arguments

The ABS functions takes only one argument – the number for which you want to get the absolute value.

The syntax is:

ABS(Number)

For example:

As with other Excel functions, the argument can be given directly as a value, e.g. ABS(5), or as a formula, e.g. ABS(3+2), and can include references to other cells, e.g. ABS(A2) or ABS((A2+A3)/2).

In any case, the input must be a numeric value. Absolute value of text does not make sense, therefore you get a #VALUE! error, for example

ABS(“some text”) = #VALUE!

In Excel, the ABS function does work with inputs which are technically numeric values for Excel, even when they might seem to be logical or non-numeric values to humans. For example, if you want to use ABS with the following for some reason…

ABS(TRUE) = 1 because the logical value TRUE is treated as number +1 in Excel

ABS(FALSE) = 0 because the logical value FALSE is treated as number 0 in Excel

ABS also works with dates and times, because these are also actually numeric values in Excel. For example:

ABS(DATE(2015,10,2)) = 42279

ABS(TIME(10,42,6)) = 0.44590278

Excel ABS Function Errors

The most common error you will get with ABS function is the #VALUE! error when input is not a numeric value, as discussed above.

If you get some other error, such as #DIV/0! or #NUM!, the problem is not with the ABS function itself, but with the input (if you removed the ABS function, the error would most likely stay the same). For example:

ABS(5/0) = #DIV/0! because 5/0 = #DIV/0! because you can’t divide 5 (or anything else) by zero.

ABS(99999999^99999999) = #NUM! because 99999999^99999999 (99,999,999 to the power of 99,999,999) = #NUM! because the number is too big to be calculated in Excel.

ABS Function Examples Summary

Support in Excel Versions

ABS is a very basic function and works in all versions of Excel.