....appending an improbable character to the COUNTIF criteria shortens the
formula and returns the same results:

Min text value:
=LOOKUP(2,1/(COUNTIF(A1:A5,"<"&A1:A5&"~")=1),A1:A5)

Max text value:
=LOOKUP(2,1/(COUNTIF(A1:A5,""&A1:A5&"~")=0),A1:A5)

Or....use CHAR(7)...the ASCII Bell...... instead of "~" to be certain that
no cell will contain the character.

***********
Regards,
Ron

XL2002, WinXP


"T. Valko" wrote:

Assuming there are no numbers in the range:

For the first alphabetically:

=LOOKUP(2,1/((COUNTIF(rng,"<"&rng)=0)*(rng<"")),rng)

For the last alphabetically:

=LOOKUP(2,1/((COUNTIF(rng,""&rng)=0)*(rng<"")),rng)

Biff

"Carlo" wrote in message
...
Hi there,

I have a list of names like Andrew, Zachary, Jeff etc and I need to find
out
which one is the highest alphabetically. The max function doesn't seem to
work.

Is this possible?

Thanks

Carlo