Excel OR Function

Basic Description

The Excel OR function tests a number of supplied conditions and returns either:

-	TRUE if ANY of the conditions evaluate to TRUE
or
-	FALSE otherwise (i.e. if ALL of the conditions evaluate to FALSE)

The syntax of the function is :

OR( logical_test1, [logical_test2], ... )

where the logical_test arguments are one or more conditions that evaluate to either TRUE or FALSE.
You can enter up to 255 conditions to the Excel Or function in Excel 2007 or 2010. However, in Excel 2003, the function can only handle up to 30 arguments.


Note that, if the logical_tests return numbers, instead of logical values, zero is treated as the logical value FALSE all non-zero numbers are treated as the logical value TRUE.

Excel OR Function Examples

The following spreadsheet shows three examples of the Excel Or function.
The spreadsheet on the left shows the formulas and the spreadsheet on the right shows the results.

Formulas: A B C 1 5 10 =OR( A1>0, A1<B1 ) 2 5 10 =OR( A2>0, A2>B2, B2>12 ) 3 5 10 =OR( A3<0, A3>B3, B3>12 )

Results: A B C 1 5 10 TRUE 2 5 10 TRUE 3 5 10 FALSE

Note that, in the above examples:

• the function in cell C1 evaluates to TRUE, as BOTH of the supplied conditions are TRUE
• the function in cell C2 evaluates to TRUE, as the first condition, A2>0, is FALSE
• the function in cell C3 evaluates to FALSE, as ALL of the supplied conditions are FALSE

OR Function Errors

The most common error from the Excel Or Function is the #VALUE! error:

Common Error

#VALUE!

-

Occurs if any of the supplied logical_test arguments are text values