Not Equal to in Excel | How to use Not Equal To Operator? (with Examples)

“Not Equal to” in Excel Formula

Using “Not Equal to” argument in excel is the most important area that must be properly explored as this is not known to most of the people that how we can insert the expression of “Not Equal to” in the logical functions. If “Not Equal to” expression is to be used in case of logical functions then we just simply need to use the expression of “<>” and these two brackets that are posing away from each other will make excel realize that we meant “Not Equal to” and hence we can then make the excel understand that what needs to be done.

How to Use “Not Equal” to Operator in Excel Formula?

Below are the Methods of using Not Equal to Operator.

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

#1 – Using “Not Equal To” to Test the Numeric Values and Text Values

In case of testing the numeric values begin typing with the equal to sign and insert the first cell and then sign of “<>” and then the second cell.

=B3<>A3

This will make excel validate if the value that is in the second cell does not match the value of the second cell.

In this case, Excel will give a result as “TRUE” if the condition is meet or “False” if the condition is not meet. This is the easiest way to check if two cells are not equal to each other. Not equal to in excel formulas will give result in only “True” or “false” format and will not tell us the magnitude.

Drag the Formula to get the rest of answers.

If we need to know the magnitude then we must use any of the below Not Equal to in Excel Formulas.

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Not equal to for Text values.

#2 – Using “Not Equal To” in Excel IF Formula

In case of using “Not equal to” in IF formula in excel, we need to first understand what result we want if the condition meets and what result we need if it fails.

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

Now the value of cell B2 is not equal to “A” then the result will be “Don’t Call”.

If the value of cell B2 is “A” then we will get “Call” as the result.

By using the IF function we can make excel displays a different result for a matched condition and also for the unmatched conditions.

#3 – Using “Not Equal to” in Excel CountIF Formula

If we want to count items except for some of the items use this COUNTIF function with “Not Equal to”,

=COUNTIF($A$2:$A$17,”<>Apples”)

In this case, Excel will calculate the count of all items that are not”Apples”.

Here we have mentioned that “do not count Apples”.

#4 – Using “Not Equal to” in Excel SumIF Formula

In case we need to sum up items except for some of the items we can use this SUMIF function with “Not equal to “formula.

=SUMIF($A$2:$A$17,”<>Apples”,B2:B17)

Here the sum will be taken for all items except for the “Apples”.

Things to Remember

While using the “Not Equal to” in this should be remembered that “True” result means that cells are not equal. A “false” result would mean that the values of the cells are equal. The interpretation of True and False as a result is different as done in case of using the “Equal to” condition.
This should be remembered that “A” is not equal to” a” for this function.
In the case of using “Not Equal to” in IF function we can consider “A” as “a” and both are equal.