The min function returns the smallest value from the numbers provided. What can be provided? Well, it could be a hard coded number. It could be a cell reference leading to another cell with a number in it, or it could be a cell range. What pops out of this function? Again, it's a numerical value. I,e. I want to restrict myself to the lower of a number of values. In terms of how it looks, you start by typing equals min, open brackets and then you can have number one and you can then have optional number 2, 3, 4, 5, et cetera. As an example, let's say I have 1000 of debt. Do I want to pay off that 1000 of debt in total or do I want to limit myself to the cash I have available? Maybe I've only got cash available of 200, in which case I would take the minimum of the 1000 date and the 200 cash, and I would only pay off 200. Let's have a look at a min function example in Excel.

In this file, I want to use the min function, so I'm going to use column G where we have the number of units sold. And you can see we have positive and negative numbers. I'd like to find the lowest number, so in G16 I'm going to type equals min, open brackets, and then I'm going to use my keyboard to select the cells. So up arrow, hold down, shift, and go all the way up to G5. Close brackets, press enter and I can see the minimum is minus eight. I would like to do exactly the same thing in column H. Here we have got sales amounts, both positive and negative numbers, and I want to find the minimum. So in H16, I type in equals min open brackets. This time I'm going to use my mouse to select the sos. So I click into H5 hold and drag down to H15, close brackets, press enter and I can see the minimum of the sales amounts is minus 22.1, so the min function zooms in on that lowest number very quickly.