One play via a non-arrray approach ..

Put in H1: =B1-ROW()/10^10
Copy H1 down to H5

(H1:H5 will function as the arbitrary tiebreaker values)

Now just put in say, C1:

=INDEX(A:A,MATCH(LARGE($H:$H,ROWS($A$1:A1)),$H:$H, 0))

Copy C1 across to D1, fill down to D5

C1:D5 will return the desired:

e 7
c 6
a 5
d 5
b 3

--
Rgds
Max
xl 97
---
GMT+8, 1° 22' N 103° 45' E
xdemechanik <atyahoo<dotcom
----
"John Mansfield" wrote in message
...
I have data in the range A1:B5 as follows:

a 5
b 3
c 6
d 5
e 7

In the range E1:E5, I have added the following multi-cell array formula
that
returns the largest values in B1:B5 sorted highest to lowest:

{=(LARGE($B$1:$B$5,{1;2;3;4;5})}

I want to add a similar formula in D1:D5 that returns the corresponding
"a,
b, c, d, and e" values that go with the largest to smallest number sort.
In
other words, when complete the range D1:E5 should look like this:

e 7
c 6
a 5
d 5
b 3

I've tried multiple combinations of INDEX, MATCH, AND OFFSET but I keep
getting the letter "a" returned twice for the number 5 and/or error
messages.

Thanks for your help.

John