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The most complicated Excel formula ever? |
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While browsing through forums (as one does) we found what must surely be the most complicated Excel formula. At 1,860 characters long - and combining some of the most complicated Excel functions - it's a true Excel monster. Unless you can do better?! |
I'm taking a bit of a risk with this blog, as it's possible that the web page it points to may change, but for the moment if you go to this Microsoft Community Answers page you will see this formula:
1,860 characters of Excel goodness!
Here's the start of the formula (I was going to indent everything, but gave up!):
=IFS(
AND(
OFFSET(
INDIRECT(
ADDRESS(
MATCH(
MAX(
Facility!E$17
Facility!E$21,
Facility!E$25,
Facility!E$29,
Facility!E$33
),
Facility!E$1:Facility!E$33,
0
),
COLUMN(E$1),
2,
1,
"Facility"
)
),
I think this is a textbook example of how not to write a formula! While it may make sense to the author - at the time of writing - I can guarantee that anyone else will take several hours to disentangle it!
It would be much better to divide this up into several steps, particularly as there is a lot of repetition involved. Not only would it make the results easier to understand and to maintain, but I suspect the total length of the combined formulae would be much shorter, as much of the repetition could be stripped out.
This is the single most complicated Excel formula I think I've ever seen. Unless you can do better?
A footnote: by coincidence since writing this blog I've seen a formula in a client's Excel workbook which may even beat the one above (Jane, you know which one I'm talking about!). Please do send your entries in!
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