If value not equal excel

The IF function allows you to make a logical comparison between a value and what you expect by testing for a condition and returning a result if that condition is True or False.

=IF(Something is True, then do something, otherwise do something else)

But what if you need to test multiple conditions, where let’s say all conditions need to be True or False (AND), or only one condition needs to be True or False (OR), or if you want to check if a condition does NOT meet your criteria? All 3 functions can be used on their own, but it’s much more common to see them paired with IF functions.

Use the IF function along with AND, OR and NOT to perform multiple evaluations if conditions are True or False.

Syntax

IF(AND()) — IF(AND(logical1, [logical2], …), value_if_true, [value_if_false]))
IF(OR()) — IF(OR(logical1, [logical2], …), value_if_true, [value_if_false]))
IF(NOT()) — IF(NOT(logical1), value_if_true, [value_if_false]))


Argument name	Description
logical_test (required)	The condition you want to test.
value_if_true (required)	The value that you want returned if the result of logical_test is TRUE.

value_if_false (optional)	The value that you want returned if the result of logical_test is FALSE.

Here are overviews of how to structure AND, OR and NOT functions individually. When you combine each one of them with an IF statement, they read like this:

AND – =IF(AND(Something is True, Something else is True), Value if True, Value if False)
OR – =IF(OR(Something is True, Something else is True), Value if True, Value if False)
NOT – =IF(NOT(Something is True), Value if True, Value if False)

Examples

Following are examples of some common nested IF(AND()), IF(OR()) and IF(NOT()) statements. The AND and OR functions can support up to 255 individual conditions, but it’s not good practice to use more than a few because complex, nested formulas can get very difficult to build, test and maintain. The NOT function only takes one condition.

Here are the formulas spelled out according to their logic:

Formula	Description
=IF(AND(A2>0,B2<100),TRUE, FALSE)	IF A2 (25) is greater than 0, AND B2 (75) is less than 100, then return TRUE, otherwise return FALSE. In this case both conditions are true, so TRUE is returned.
=IF(AND(A3=»Red»,B3=»Green»),TRUE,FALSE)	If A3 (“Blue”) = “Red”, AND B3 (“Green”) equals “Green” then return TRUE, otherwise return FALSE. In this case only the first condition is true, so FALSE is returned.
=IF(OR(A4>0,B4<50),TRUE, FALSE)	IF A4 (25) is greater than 0, OR B4 (75) is less than 50, then return TRUE, otherwise return FALSE. In this case, only the first condition is TRUE, but since OR only requires one argument to be true the formula returns TRUE.
=IF(OR(A5=»Red»,B5=»Green»),TRUE,FALSE)	IF A5 (“Blue”) equals “Red”, OR B5 (“Green”) equals “Green” then return TRUE, otherwise return FALSE. In this case, the second argument is True, so the formula returns TRUE.
=IF(NOT(A6>50),TRUE,FALSE)	IF A6 (25) is NOT greater than 50, then return TRUE, otherwise return FALSE. In this case 25 is not greater than 50, so the formula returns TRUE.
=IF(NOT(A7=»Red»),TRUE,FALSE)	IF A7 (“Blue”) is NOT equal to “Red”, then return TRUE, otherwise return FALSE.

Note that all of the examples have a closing parenthesis after their respective conditions are entered. The remaining True/False arguments are then left as part of the outer IF statement. You can also substitute Text or Numeric values for the TRUE/FALSE values to be returned in the examples.

Here are some examples of using AND, OR and NOT to evaluate dates.

Here are the formulas spelled out according to their logic:

Formula	Description
=IF(A2>B2,TRUE,FALSE)	IF A2 is greater than B2, return TRUE, otherwise return FALSE. 03/12/14 is greater than 01/01/14, so the formula returns TRUE.
=IF(AND(A3>B2,A3<C2),TRUE,FALSE)	IF A3 is greater than B2 AND A3 is less than C2, return TRUE, otherwise return FALSE. In this case both arguments are true, so the formula returns TRUE.
=IF(OR(A4>B2,A4<B2+60),TRUE,FALSE)	IF A4 is greater than B2 OR A4 is less than B2 + 60, return TRUE, otherwise return FALSE. In this case the first argument is true, but the second is false. Since OR only needs one of the arguments to be true, the formula returns TRUE. If you use the Evaluate Formula Wizard from the Formula tab you’ll see how Excel evaluates the formula.
=IF(NOT(A5>B2),TRUE,FALSE)	IF A5 is not greater than B2, then return TRUE, otherwise return FALSE. In this case, A5 is greater than B2, so the formula returns FALSE.

Using AND, OR and NOT with Conditional Formatting

You can also use AND, OR and NOT to set Conditional Formatting criteria with the formula option. When you do this you can omit the IF function and use AND, OR and NOT on their own.

From the Home tab, click Conditional Formatting > New Rule. Next, select the “Use a formula to determine which cells to format” option, enter your formula and apply the format of your choice.

Using the earlier Dates example, here is what the formulas would be.

Formula	Description
=A2>B2	If A2 is greater than B2, format the cell, otherwise do nothing.
=AND(A3>B2,A3<C2)	If A3 is greater than B2 AND A3 is less than C2, format the cell, otherwise do nothing.
=OR(A4>B2,A4<B2+60)	If A4 is greater than B2 OR A4 is less than B2 plus 60 (days), then format the cell, otherwise do nothing.
=NOT(A5>B2)	If A5 is NOT greater than B2, format the cell, otherwise do nothing. In this case A5 is greater than B2, so the result will return FALSE. If you were to change the formula to =NOT(B2>A5) it would return TRUE and the cell would be formatted.

Note: A common error is to enter your formula into Conditional Formatting without the equals sign (=). If you do this you’ll see that the Conditional Formatting dialog will add the equals sign and quotes to the formula — =»OR(A4>B2,A4<B2+60)», so you’ll need to remove the quotes before the formula will respond properly.

Need more help?

Not Equal To in Excel

Not Equal To generally is represented by striking equal sign when the values are not equal to each other. But in Excel, it is represented by greater than and less than operator sign “<>” between the values which we want to compare. If the values are equal, then it used the operator will return as TRUE, else we will get FALSE. We can use the Not Equal operator along with other conditional functions as IF, SUMIF, COUNTIF function to get some other kind of meaning of results.

How to Put ‘ Not Equal To ‘ in Excel?

Not Equal To in Excel is very simple and easy to use. Let’s understand the working of Not Equal To Operator in Excel by some examples.

You can download this Not Equal To Excel Template here – Not Equal To Excel Template

Example #1 – Using ‘ Not Equal To Excel ‘ Operator

In this example, we are going to see how to use the Not Equal To logical operation <> in excel.

Consider the below example, which has values in both the columns now; we are going to check the Brand MRP of Amazon and Flipkart.

Now we are going to check that Amazon MRP is not equal to Flipkart MRP by following the below steps.

Create a new column.

Apply the formula in excel as shown below.

So as we can see in the above screenshot, we applied the formula as =B3<>C3 here, we can see that in the B3 column Amazon MRP is 1400, and Flipkart MRP is 1400, so the MRP matches exactly.
Excel will check if B3 values are not equal to C3, then it returns TRUE or else it will return FALSE.
Here in the above screenshot, we can see that Amazon MRP is equal to Flipkart MRP, so we will get the output as FALSE, which is shown in the below screenshot.

Drag down the formula for the next cell. So the output will be as below:

We can see that the formula =B4<>C4; in this case, Amazon MRP is not equal to Flipkart MRP. So excel will return the output as TRUE, as shown below.

Example #2 – Using String

In this excel example, we are going to see how not equal to excel operator works in strings. Consider the below example, which shows two different titles named for Amazon and Flipkart.

Here we will check that Amazon’s title name matches the Flipkart title name by following the below steps.

First, create a new column called Output.

Apply the formula as =A2<>B2.

So the above formula will check for A2 title name is not equal to B2 title name if it is not equal, it will return FALSE or else it will return TRUE as we can see that both the title names are the same and it will return the output as FALSE which is shown in the below screenshot.

Drag down the same formula for the next cell. So the output will be as below:

As =A3<>B3, where we can see the A3 title is not equal to the B3 title, so we will get the output as TRUE which is shown as the output in the below screenshot.

Example #3 – Using IF Statement

In this excel example, we are going to see how to use the if statement in the Not Equal To operator.

Consider the below example, where we have title names of both Flipkart and Paytm, as shown below.

Now we are going to apply the Not Equal To Excel operator inside the if statement to check both the title names are equal or not equal by following the below steps.

Create a new column as Output.

Now apply the if condition statement as follows =IF(A2<>B2, “Title Not Matching”, “Title Matching”)

Here in the if condition, we used not equal to Operator to check whether the title is equal to or not equal.
Moreover, we have mentioned in the if condition in double-quotes as “Title Not Matching”, i.e., if it is not equal to it, it will return as “Title Not Matching”, or else it will return “Title Matching”, as shown in the below screenshot.
As we can see that both the title names are different, and it will return the output as Title Not Matching which is shown in the below screenshot.

Drag down the same formula for the next cell.

In this example, we can see that the A3 title is equal to the B3 title; hence we will get the output as “Title Matching “, which is shown as the output in the below screenshot.

Example #4 – Using the COUNTIF Function

In this excel example, we are going to see how the COUNTIF Function works in the Not Equal To operator.

Consider the below example, which shows student’s subject marks along with the grade.

Here we are going to count how many students have taken the marks in it equal to 94 by following the below steps.

Create a new row named as Marks Not Equal To 50.

Now apply the COUNTIF formula as =COUNTIF(C2:C7,”<>50″)

As we can see in the above screenshot, we have applied the COUNTIF function to find out Student marks not equal to 50. We have selected the cells C2:C7, and in the double quotes, we have used <> not equal to Operator and mentioned the number 50.
The above formula counts the student’s marks which is not equal to 50, and return the output as 5, as shown in the below result.
In the below screenshot, we can see that marks not equal to 50 are 5, i.e. Five students scored marks more than 50.

Now we will use a string to check the student’s grade stating how many students are not equal to the grade “Very Good”, which is shown in the below screenshot.

For this, we can apply the formula as =COUNTIF(D2:D7,”<>”& A9).

So this COUNTIF function will find the student’s grade from the range we have specified D2:D7 using the Not Equal To Excel OPERATOR. The grade variable “VERY GOOD” has been concatenated by the operator “&” by specifying A9. Which will give us the result of 3, i.e. 3 students grade are not equal to “Very Good” which is shown in the below output.

Things to Remember About Not Equal To in Excel

In Microsoft excel, logical operators mostly used in conditional formatting, which will give us the perfect result.
Not Equal To operator always requires at least two values to check either it is “TRUE” or “FALSE”.
Make sure that you are giving the correct condition statement while using the Not Equal To the operator, or else we will get an invalid result.

What is “Not Equal To” Sign in Excel?

The “not equal to” is a logical operator in excel that helps compare two numerical or textual values. It is written (like <>) using a pair of angle brackets pointing away from each other. The “not equal to” excel sign returns either of the two Boolean values (true and false) as the outcome

True implies that the two compared values are different or not equal.
False implies that the two compared values are the same or equal.

For example, “=2<>4” (ignore the double quotation marks) returns “true” since the numbers 2 and 4 are not equal to each other.

The “not equal to” is used in the arguments of several Excel functions. The purpose of using the “not equal to” is to assess whether two values are different or not. However, the magnitude of difference is not conveyed by this operator.

What is “Not Equal To” Sign in Excel?
- How is the “Not Equal To” Sign Used in Excel?
  - Example #1–Compare two Numeric Values with the “Not Equal To” Operator
  - Example #2–Compare two Textual Values with the “Not Equal To” Operator
  - Example #3–Obtain Defined Results with the IF Function and the “Not Equal To” Condition
  - Example #4–Count Specific Cells with the COUNTIF Function and the “Not Equal To” Condition
  - Example #5–Sum Particular Cells with the SUMIF Function and the “Not Equal To” Condition
- The Key Points Related to the “Not Equal To” Operator of Excel
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Recommended Articles

How is the “Not Equal To” Sign Used in Excel?

Let us consider some examples to understand the working of the “not equal to” operator in Excel.

You can download this Not Equal to Excel Template here – Not Equal to Excel Template

Example #1–Compare two Numeric Values with the “Not Equal To” Operator

The succeeding image shows the marks of students A and B (columns A and B) in 10 subjects. The total marks of each subject are 200. We want to find those rows for which the marks of the two students are unequal. Use the “not equal to” signof Excel.

The steps to find if a difference exists between the two marks are listed as follows:

Step 1: In cell C3, type the “equal to” symbol followed by the cell reference B3. Since the difference between cells B3 and A3 needs to be assessed, insert the “not equal to” sign between these two cell references.

The formula should look like the expression “=B3<>A3.” This expression is also known as a statement or a condition.

Note: A condition in Excel is an expression that evaluates to either true or false. At a given time, a condition cannot be assessed as both true and false.

Step 2: Press the “Enter” key. The output in cell C3 is “true.” This is shown in the following image.

Step 3: Drag the formula of cell C3 till cell C12 by using the fill handle. This is shown in the following image.

Step 4: The outputs for the entire column C are shown in the following image. The outputs which are false have been colored yellow. The inferences from this dataset are stated as follows:

If the output is “true,” the values of column A and column B for a given row are not equal. This means that the “not equal to” excel condition for that particular row is met. For instance, the “not equal to” condition for row 3 is “=B3<>A3.” In other words, 124 is not equal to 54.
If the output is “false,” the values of column A and column B for a given row are equal. This means that the “not equal to” condition for that particular row is not met. For instance, the “not equal to” condition for row 5 is “=B5<>A5.” In other words, 120 is certainly equal to 120.

Overall, for three rows (rows 5, 6, and 10), the marks of students A and B are equal. Except for these rows, the marks are unequal in all the remaining rows (rows 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 12). Without knowing the magnitude of difference, one cannot conclude whose performance (from students A and B) is better.

Example #2–Compare two Textual Values with the “Not Equal To” Operator

In the dataset of example #1, we have substituted random grades (from A to J) in place of numbers. We want to find the rows for which the grades of students A and B are unequal. Use the “not equal to” operator of Excel.

The steps to find if a difference exists (between the grades) are listed as follows:

Step 1: Enter the formula “=B3<>A3” in cell C3. Press the “Enter” key. The output in cell C3 is “true.” So, for row 3, the “not equal to” excel operator has validated that the values in the first and second cell (A3 and B3) are not equal.

Step 2: Drag the formula of cell C3 till cell C12. The outputs for the entire column C are shown in the following image. The single false output has been colored yellow.

The output in cell C3 meets the “not equal to” excel condition, which is “=B3<>A3.” In contrast, the output in cell C11 does not meet the “not equal to” condition, which is “=B11<>A11.” Hence, the grades of all rows, except row 11, are unequal. The grades of the two students are equal for row 11.

Example #3–Obtain Defined Results with the IF Function and the “Not Equal To” Condition

The succeeding image shows the names of a few candidates and their native places in columns A and B respectively. From these candidates, an organization wants to hire those candidates whose city of origin is “A.”

We want to differentiate candidates who need to be contacted and who need not be contacted for the further hiring process. For this, display the status as either “please call” or “don’t call” (in column C), depending on whether the hometown of a candidate is “A” or not.

Use the IF function and the “not equal to” operator of Excel.

The steps to use the IF functionIF function in Excel evaluates whether a given condition is met and returns a value depending on whether the result is “true” or “false”. It is a conditional function of Excel, which returns the result based on the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of the given criteria.
read more and the “not equal to” operator are listed as follows:

Step 1: Enter the following formula in cell C2.

“=IF(B2<>”A”,”Don’t call”,”Please Call”)”

Press the “Enter” key. Drag the formula till cell C9. The outputs of column C are shown in the succeeding image. The candidates whose city of origin is “A” have been assigned the “please call” status in column C.

Note: In the given IF formula, the condition [B2<>“A”] is the logical test. The string “don’t call” is “value_if_true” and the string “please call” is “value_if_false.”

So, the IF formula returns “don’t” call” for a given row, if the value of column B is not equal to “A” (i.e., the condition is true). It returns “please call” for a given row, if the value of column B is equal to “A” (i.e., the condition is false).

With the help of the IF function, Excel can display different results for the matched and unmatched conditions. For more details related to the IF function of Excel, click the hyperlink given immediately before step 1 of this example.

Step 2: The candidates whose hometown is other than “A” have been assigned the “don’t call” status in column C. This is shown in the following image.

Hence, only candidates “Aditya,” “Kuryu,” and “Hrty” should be called for the further round of interviews. The remaining candidates need not be contacted.

So, with the IF function and the “not equal to” excel operator, we have successfully differentiated the candidates who can be hired from those who cannot be hired.

Note: Notice that this step has been added only for the purpose of understanding. The preceding step (step 1) is complete in itself for the given task of hiring candidates.

Example #4–Count Specific Cells with the COUNTIF Function and the “Not Equal To” Condition

The succeeding image shows certain fruits (or items) in column A and their quantities ordered in column B. Apart from apples, mangoes, and cherries, the remaining fruits have been clubbed under “other items” in column A.

We want to count the number of cells (of column A) that are not equal to:

“Apples”
“Mango”
“Cherry”

There should be three outputs, one output excluding one fruit. Use the COUNTIF function and the “not equal to” operator of Excel.

The steps to use the COUNTIF functionThe COUNTIF function in Excel counts the number of cells within a range based on pre-defined criteria. It is used to count cells that include dates, numbers, or text. For example, COUNTIF(A1:A10,”Trump”) will count the number of cells within the range A1:A10 that contain the text “Trump”
read more and the “not equal to” operator are listed as follows:

Step 1: Enter the following formulas in cells E2, E3, and E4 respectively.

“=COUNTIF($A$2:$A$17,”<>Apples”)”
“=COUNTIF($A$2:$A$17,”<>Mango”)”
“=COUNTIF($A$2:$A$17,”<>Cherry”)”

Press the “Enter” key after entering each formula.

The first formula counts the number of cells in the range A2:A17, which do not contain the string “apples.” Likewise, the second formula counts the number of cells in this range that do not contain the string “mango.” The third formula helps count the number of cells in the given range (A2:A7), which do not contain the string “cherry.”

Notice that the succeeding image shows the formula in cell E2 and the result of the third formula in cell E4.

Note: “$A$2:$A$17” is the “range” argument of the preceding COUNTIF formulas. The condition “<>Apples” is the “criteria” argument of the first formula. In all the preceding formulas, the range is the same, but the criterions are different.

The COUNTIF counts the cells of a range, which satisfy a single criterion. For more details related to the COUNTIF function, click the hyperlink given before step 1 of this example.

Step 2: The following image shows the three outputs (in cells E2, E3, and E4) of the three formulas entered in the preceding step.

Notice that “cherry” has been deliberately misspelled as “cheery” in cell A15. As a result, this cell has also been counted (as a cell not containing “cherry”) by the third COUNTIF formula.

Had the word been correctly spelled in cell A15, the output in cell E4 would have been 12. In this case, cell A15 would have been excluded from the count (as a cell containing “cherry”).

Step 3: The rows containing “apples” are displayed in black boxes in the following image. These rows are excluded while counting the cells not containing “apples.” Hence, 11 cells (in the range A2:A17) do not contain the string “apples.”

Likewise, in the given range, 12 cells do not contain the string “mango” and 13 cells do not contain the string “cherry.”

Note: This step has been added only for notifying the readers, the cells that are counted and the cells that are left out by the first COUNTIF formula (entered in step 1).

Example #5–Sum Particular Cells with the SUMIF Function and the “Not Equal To” Condition

Working on the data of example #3, we want to sum the quantities of column B that are not equal to:

“Apples”
“Mango”
“Cherry”

There should be three summed outputs where each output excludes one fruit. Use the SUMIF function and the “not equal to” sign of Excel.

The steps to use the SUMIF functionThe SUMIF Excel function calculates the sum of a range of cells based on given criteria. The criteria can include dates, numbers, and text. For example, the formula “=SUMIF(B1:B5, “<=12”)” adds the values in the cell range B1:B5, which are less than or equal to 12.
read more and the “not equal to” operator are listed as follows:

Step 1: Enter the following formulas in cells E2, E3, and E4 respectively.

“=SUMIF($A$2:$A$17,”<>Apples”,B2:B17)”
“=SUMIF($A$2:$A$17,”<>Mango”,B2:B17)”
“=SUMIF($A$2:$A$17,”<>Cherry”,B2:B17)”

The first formula is shown in the following image.

In all three formulas, the SUMIF function evaluates the range A2:A17. For cells not equal to “apples” (in range A2:A17), the first formula sums the numbers of the range B2:B17. Likewise, for cells not equal to “mango” in the given range (A2:A17), the second formula also sums the numbers of the range B2:B17. Similar summing is carried out by excluding cells containing “cherry.”

Note: “$A$2:$A$17” is the “range” argument of the SUMIF function. The condition “<>Apples” is the “criteria” argument. The range “B2:B17” is the “sum_range” argument of the SUMIF function.

With the SUMIF function, we have applied the given condition (in each formula) to the range A2:A17 and summed up the corresponding values of the range B2:B17. Usually, the SUMIF works with a single criterion. For more details related to the SUMIF function, click the hyperlink given before step 1 of this example.

Step 2: Press the “Enter” key after entering each of the preceding formulas. The three summed outputs are shown in the following image.

Hence, the sum of all the fruit quantities except “apples” is 136. Excluding the cells containing “mango,” this sum is 149. Likewise, leaving the cells containing “cherry,” this sum is 162.

Notice that the value of cell B15 has also been included in the sum returned (in cell E4) by the third SUMIF formula (entered in step 1). This is because in cell A15, the spelling of “cherry” has been misspelled as “cheery.” Hence, Excel considers A15 as a cell not containing “cherry.”

The important points governing the usage of the “not equal to” operator of Excel are listed as follows:

The “not equal to” is the converse of the “equal to” operator. This implies that the interpretation of “true” and “false” is exactly the opposite with these two logical operators.
The results produced by the “not equal to” operator are similar to those returned by the NOT function of Excel. The NOT function reverses the “true” and “false” outcomes of a condition. For instance, if the output of a condition is “false,” the formula “=NOT(false)” returns “true.”
The “not equal to” operator is case-insensitive. This means that it ignores the casing of the two text strings that are compared. For instance, if “rose” and “ROSE” are compared using the “not equal to” operator, the output is “false.” This is because these two values mean the same to the “not equal to” excel operator.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Define the “not equal to” operator and state how is it used in Excel.

The “not equal to” excel operator checks whether two values (numeric or textual) being compared are different from each other or not. If the values are different, the output is “true.” If the values are the same, the output is “false.” The “not equal to” operator is the easiest method to ensure that a difference exists between two values.

In Excel, the “not equal to” operator is used as follows:

“=value1<>value2”

“Value1” is the first value to be compared and “value2” is the second value to be compared.

Note: Exclude the beginning and ending double quotation marks while entering the “not equal to” condition in Excel. For more details related to the usage of this operator, refer to the examples of this article.

2. How to use the “not equal to” operator with the conditional formatting feature of Excel?

The steps to use the “not equal to” with the conditional formatting feature of Excel are listed as follows:

a. Select the range on which a conditional formatting rule is to be applied.
b. From the Home tab, click the “conditional formatting” drop-down from the “styles” group. Next, click “new rule.”
c. The “new formatting rule” window opens. Under “select a rule type,” choose the option “use a formula to determine which cells to format.”
d. Under “format values where this formula is true,” enter the desired formula. For instance, if cells (in the range A1:A6) not equal to 2 are to be formatted, enter the formula as “=A1<>2” (without the beginning and ending double quotation marks).
e. Click “format” and select a color from the “fill” tab. Click “Ok” in the “format cells” window.
f. Click “Ok” again in the “new formatting rule” window.

The chosen color (selected in step “e”) is applied to the selected range (selected in step “a”). If the formula given in step “d” is applied, the cells of the range A1:A6, which do not contain 2, are colored. No formatting is applied to the remaining cells.

Note: To conditionally format a range of text values by using the “not equal to” operator, keep the string of the formula in double quotation marks. For instance, the formula [=A1<>“rose”] formats those cells of the selected range which do not contain the string “rose.” Exclude the beginning and ending square brackets while applying this formula.

3. How to use the “not equal to” operator to find blanks in a range of Excel?

The steps to find blanks in Excel by using the “not equal to” operator are listed as follows:

a. Enter the formula containing the cell reference (to be evaluated), “not equal to” operator, and an empty text string. For instance, if blanks in the range A1:A6 are to be found, enter the formula =A1<>“” in cell B1.
b. Press the “Enter” key. Drag the formula to the remaining range (of column B) to obtain outputs for the entire column (column A).

The cells containing blanks have been identified. The formula entered in step “a” returns “true” for all values which are not blanks. For all blank values, this formula returns “false.”

Since the double quotation marks of the formula represent an empty string, a “false” implies that the cell value is equal to an empty string. Conversely, a “true” implies that the cell contains some value, which is not equal to an empty string.

The «does not equal» operator

Excel’s «does not equal» operator is simple: a pair of brackets pointing away from each other, like so: «<>«. Whenever Excel sees this symbol in your formulas, it will assess whether the two statements on opposite sides of these brackets are equal to one another. If they are not equal, it will output TRUE, and if they are equal, it will output FALSE. This is the exact opposite functionality of the equals sign (=), which will output TRUE if the values on either side of it are equal and FALSE if they are not.

Let’s take a look at the «does not equal» operator in action to see how we can use it in a simple formula:

=6<>8
Output: TRUE

The above formula outputs TRUE, because 6 does not equal 8. Let’s take a look at another simple example using integers:

=45<>45
Output: FALSE

This formula outputs FALSE, because 45 is equal to 45.

Of course, «<>» doesn’t have to be used on numbers. It can also be used on strings of text. Can you tell why the following formulas output the given results?

="Boston"<>"San Francisco"
Output: TRUE

="New York"<>"New York"
Output: FALSE

=RIGHT("Boston, MA", 2)<>"MA"
Output: FALSE

Hint: For the last example above, you’ll have to read up on how the RIGHT function works if you don’t already know it!

Combining <> with IF statements

The «does not equal» operator is useful on its own, but it becomes most powerful when combined with an IF function. Let’s take a look at a practical example to see how this works.

The following example uses the

function. If you haven’t used

statements yet, check out our

IF statement tutorial

first.

The spreadsheet above shows a list of SnackWorld’s office locations around the country. The company’s headquarters is in New York, and all of the other offices are local. A SnackWorld manager wants to add a column to the spreadsheet that dynamically outputs whether a given office is the company headquarters or a local office.

To do so, we could use the following formula:

=IF(B3<>"New York","Local office","Headquarters")
Output: "Local office"

Note that this formula outputs «Local office» for all the offices names that do not equal «New York»; but, it outputs «Headquarters» when it sees that the office name is equal to «New York».

Note that the above formula could be rewritten as follows, using the equals operator (=) but switching the order of the IF statement’s value_if_true and value_if_false arguments:

=IF(B3="New York","Headquarters","Local office")
Output: "Local office"

Is there any advantage to using the «<>» operator instead of the equals sign? Definitely. When you’re using IF statements, you can swap around the order of arguments and generally use either «=» or «<>» in your formulas. But when working with more advanced conditional formulas — in particular, SUMIF and COUNTIF — you’ll likely bump into scenarios in which only «<>» is sufficient (for example, if you want to sum up sales for all offices for which the office name is not «New York»).

Other logical operators

If you found this article useful, consider taking a look at our full article on logical operators. We’ll teach you how to use the full range of logical operators, including «greater than» and «less than», in your formulas.

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