Wow! I am glad that I have so many experts to look up to. But, I am very lost now and I need help.

I have seen &"" quite a bit but I have never seen &"~" until now. Some of you may be aware that I like to experiment a lot. So, here I go again.

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

I took out the ~ and use a space instead and I got the same result.
I took out the ~ and did NOT leave a space i.e. "" and I got the *second* smallest value and not the min.

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

Regardless of whether I use "~", " " (with space) or "" (w/o space), I got the same correct result (i.e. the max).

I am going to make this more confusing for myself. Is there a connection between "~" and what Bob P. wrote previously? If not, can someone give me an explanation similar to the following so that I can understand "~"?

Adding &"" to the end of the COUNTIF formula forces a count
of the blanks. This addition on its own removes the #DIV/0! error, but will
cause the blanks to be counted as a unique item. A further addition to the formula
resolves this by testing for those blanks. Instead of dividing the array of
counts into 1 each time, adding the test creates an array of TRUE/FALSE
values to be divided by the equivalent element in the counts array. Each
blank will resolve to FALSE in the dividend array, and the count of the
blanks in the divisor array. The result of this will be 0, so the blanks do
not get counted. <<

I appreciate all the help I can get as I am very lost now.

Epinn

"Ron Coderre" wrote in message ...
....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