False in Excel

FALSE Function in Excel

FALSE in Excel is a compatibility function and returns the value FALSE. This value is a logical value and is equivalent to Boolean or logical value FALSE. Boolean logic has two sides- TRUE and FALSE in which TRUE represents 1 while FALSE is synonymous to 0.

FALSE Formula in Excel

Below is the False Formula in Excel.

The FALSE Formula in Excel requires no arguments.

One may also enter the word “FALSE” directly into any cell or formula, and Excel will interpret this as the logical value FALSE.

How to Use False Function in Excel?

It is mostly used in conjugation with other functions, such as Conditional Functions, which do different things depending on whether a certain criterion is met. For example,

1. an employer will increase your monthly payment if you have reached a particular target.
2. You will get a discount coupon only when you have done shopping for more than 5,000.

The FALSE function in Excel is equivalent to the number 0. All the mathematical operations can be performed with this function. If you multiply any number with this function, it will return zero.

Example #1

To obtain a FALSE in a cell, enter the false function :

=FALSE()

and press Enter

The function will simply return “FALSE”.

The function can be used along with mathematical operations, in which the function takes the value 0. Let us see an example.

Example #2

Suppose you multiply a number, say 10 with the function. The syntax will be:

=FALSE * 10 or FALSE() * 10

and press Enter

The function will return 0.

Similarly, if you add the number with the function

Syntax: =FALSE + 10 or FALSE() + 10

it will return 10 (as 0+10=10).

Example #3

Suppose you have a number in cell C3 and you want to check whether the number is greater than 50.

You can use the following syntax to check the condition

=C3 > 50

The syntax will return FALSE.

Similarly, you can check if the number in C3 is less than 10 using the syntax below.

=C3 < 10

This again returns FALSE.

The FALSE function is most widely used with Conditional Functions. Let us see an example of how to use FALSE function with IF condition.

Example #4

Suppose different employees in your company sells the same item. Depending on the number of items an employee sells in a month, you will decide whether to give the employee a bonus or not. The number of items sold by five employees (A4:A8) is given in B4:B8.

If an employee sells equal to or more than 1000 goods, he will get a bonus. So, the syntax for the first employee would be:

=IF(B4>=1000, TRUE, FALSE)

This will return TRUE when the employee has reached the target and FALSE when he/she has not, as shown below.

The IF function in itself works on the logical value TRUE and FALSE. It may be noted here that in IF function, if you do not provide the value_if_false, it will automatically return FALSE as shown below.

Example #5

Suppose you run a delivery outlet, and in this, you maintain a sheet of order numbers and their delivery status as shown below.

So, if the status is “Delivered” that means the order is complete. You can check using the FALSE statement whether an order is complete or not. For the 1^st order (given in A4:B4), you can do so using the syntax-

=IF(B4=”Delivered”, TRUE, FALSE)

Expanding the function to the rest of the cells will return the status of completion in TRUE or FALSE as shown below.

You may also calculate the number of pending orders using the function COUNTIF as:

COUNTIF(C:C,FALSE)

The function will count the number of times the value FALSE is occurring in column C.

Since the number of FALSE in this example is 3, it will return 3.

Instead of C:C, you may also use C4:C8 since the values are in these cells only. However, the entries may keep on increasing with time, for C:C it will not be required to change everytime an entry is added.

Example #6

Suppose you have a list of students and their marks in 5 different subjects as shown below.

If any cell for marks (from C4:G23) is left blank, it specifies that the student has not given the exam. If the marks are less than 40, the student is considered fail. In both cases, the final result of the student will not be declared. Now, you can calculate the percentage of the students who have successfully passed in all the subjects but not for those who could not.

You may do so using the following syntax

=IF(AND(C4>40, D4>40, E4>40, F4>40, G4>40), SUM(C4:G4)/5, FALSE )

In this syntax,

1. AND(C4>40, D4>40, E4>40, F4>40, G4>40)

will return TRUE if the student has secured marks greater than 40 in all the five subjects, else FALSE.

2. IF(AND(…), SUM(C4:G4)/5, FALSE )

which implies

=IF(TRUE,SUM(C4:G4)/5, FALSE )   or  =IF(FALSE,SUM(C4:G4)/5, FALSE )

If AND(…) returns TRUE, the IF function will return the percentage of marks the student has secured, i.e. SUM(C4:G4)/5.

If AND(…) returns FALSE, the IF function will also return FALSE.

You can simply drag it to the rest of the cells and will get the final output as:

Since it is a logical value, TRUE is the opposite of FALSE. If you type NOT(FALSE), it will return TRUE. See the example below.

Example #7

Suppose you have a list of interested participants for your campaign and the information whether they have registered or not, as shown below.

If I say “Ashwin has registered”, you will say TRUE. However, if I say “Ashwin has not registered”, you will say FALSE. You may change TRUE to FALSE simply by using the NOT function

For the 1^st name in the list, the syntax will be:

=NOT(B4)

It will return FALSE.

You can simply drag it to the rest of the cells, you will get the final output for the complete list as shown below.

Things to Remember About FALSE Function in Excel

• The function returns logical value FALSE
• FALSE & FALSE () both are identical.
• FALSE has a value 0.
• There are only two logical values-TRUE and FALSE. TRUE is the opposite of FALSE.
• The function does not require any argument.

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