ISNA Excel Function | How to use ISNA Function? (with Examples)

What is ISNA Function in Excel?

ISNA excel function is a type of error handling function in excel which is used to identify if any of the cells has the #N/A error, this function returns a value true if #N/A error is identified and returns if there is any other value apart from #N/A.

Syntax

Parameters

As it is clear from the syntax shown above the ISNA function has only one parameter which is explained below:

Value: The “Value” parameter is quite flexible, it can be another function or formula, a cell or a value that need to be tested.

The ISNA function returns:

True: If “Value” parameter returns #N/A error or,
False: If the “Value” parameter doesn’t return #N/A error.

This will be much clearer from the following examples explained in the next section

Purpose of ISNA Function in Excel

The purpose of the ISNA function is to identify whether there is #N/A error that exists in any cell, formula or value. #N/A error is more common in the formulas where excel needs to find something. Whenever a formula looks for any value and that value doesn’t exist, in that case, the system returns #N/A error, ISNA function returns true or false based on the existence of #N/A error.

So with the help of ISNA function Excel experts can easily deal with #N/A error, they can replace the error with another value.

How to Use the ISNA Function in Excel? (with Examples)

In this section, we will understand the uses of the ISNA function and will look at a few examples with the help of actual data. The ISNA function is really easy to use, and as explained in the previous section, it uses only one mandatory parameter.

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You can download this ISNA Function Excel Template here – ISNA Function Excel Template

Example #1

In the above, we have used a function called FIND function which returns the position of a character in a cell.

So the out of the function FIND will be 7.

Let’s just pass above FIND function as a parameter to

In the parameter, we have used a Find function which returned “7” as output. That’s why ISNA returned FALSE because the output of Value Parameter is not #N/A error.

Example #2

Now let’s just pass #N/A directly as a parameter to ISNA function

In the above case, we directly passed #N/A as a parameter to ISNA function and ISNA returned a TRUE value, which proves that ISNA detects #N/A error present in any cell.

Example #3

Now let’s pass #VALUE! as a parameter to ISNA function

In the above case, we passed #VALUE! as a parameter to the ISNA function. #VALUE! is also a data missing error. But ISNA returned a FALSE value because ISNA detects only #N/A error, not any other error.

Example #4

In this example, we will use some other functions as parameters for the ISNA function.

Output is True

Points to Remember

It can be used as a worksheet function.
It returns a Boolean value (TRUE or FALSE).