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How to Use the Less Than or Equal to Operator in Excel

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Manual calculation is derived from the best and most common methods used in the past. However, today’s businesses have large transactions that take more work to calculate manually. After reviewing the discussion and calculations, switch to using Excel immediately. I am referring to Microsoft’s product, which simplifies millions of calculations with a simple formula.

It deserves its dominance, as it has more than 500 formulas with which you can perform fantastic analyses from a simple spreadsheet. Here, we use a variety of operators, but the equal to (=) operand is the most commonly used. You will be surprised to learn what an equal-to-or-less-than operand does. So, we will explain different approaches to using the less than or equal operators in Excel.

How do I use “less than or equal to” in Excel?

In Excel, you cannot execute any function without using an operand. You should know the meaning of all of the different operands. Here, we discuss the “less than or equal to” operand. You need to understand its purpose and meaning to use it ideally. To use it, you must compare two values and analyze whether one is less than or equal to the other.

You might be wondering where such an operator might be helpful. Consider a few examples, such as comparing the performance of two students or comparing profits from two quarters for a financial analyst. This operator is mainly used to compare values and shows a “true” response if one value is less than or equal to the second value; otherwise, it shows “false.”

To use this operator, follow the step-by-step instructions below:

Note: Here, we will explain the steps to using the “less than or equal to” operator to find the class performance of two students.

  1. Open Microsoft Excel on your device.
  2. Select the cell in which you want to display the comparison results.
  3. Insert the formula =A2=B2, where A2 is the mark obtained by one student, and B2 is the mark obtained by another student.
  4. Press Enter to see the results.
  5. If the student in cell A2 obtained marks less than or equal to those in cell B2, the result will show “true”; otherwise, it will show “false.”
  6. That is it! You can use this operator to compare values in Excel.

With the help of the Less than or Equal to the operator, as shown in the example above, it was found that the student in cell A2 performed worse than the student in cell B2 (if the result is accurate) and vice versa. You can use this same formula with other formulas to perform more complex calculations. Additionally, you can use it with formulas like COUNTIF or SUMIF to compare the values of two sums or counts.

In conclusion, less than or equal to is one of the many operators available in Excel. I hope you have learned a new way to simplify the comparison of two values. Now that you understand the fundamental purpose of the less than or equal operand, you can quickly put the formula in the right place. However, this formula only provides a true or false answer. Also, remember that this is not the only comparison operator available; you can customize it to use greater than, equal to (>=), or similar. Apart from that, everything is fine, and you can compare values in Excel itself. If you have questions, please ask them below.

Frequently asked questions

Q1. How do you use <> in Excel?

Ans. It depends on your needs, but a comparison operator can usually compare values based on greater than or less than, as mentioned above.

Q2. How do I highlight cells with less than a value in Excel?

Ans. You can do that from the Highlight Cell Rules under Conditional Formatting.

Q3. How do I only show values greater than those in Excel?

Ans. Using a more extraordinary filter, you can display more remarkable values than those in Excel.

Q4. What does ≥ mean?

Ans. It means greater than or equal to.