Random Numbers

Tips, Tricks, and Answers

The following articles are available for the 'Random Numbers' topic. Click the article's title (shown in bold) to see the associated article.

AutoFill with Random Numbers
AutoFilling is a great tool in Excel; it allows you to place a wide range of values into cells. If you want to use it to add random numbers to a worksheet, you'll be disappointed—Excel won't do it. You can, however, use one of the tools available in the Analysis ToolPak to generate a whole bunch of random numbers.

Determining a Random Value
One of the better-known VBA functions is Rnd, which allows you to generate a random value between 0 and 1. You can use this for all sorts of purposes, as described here.

Generating Double-Digit Random Numbers
Normally you use the RAND and RANDBETWEEN functions to generate random numbers. What if you want to generate random numbers within a certain range but exclude some numbers in that range? Here's some ideas on how to get what you want.

Picking Different Random Numbers from a Range
It is not unusual to need to select two random items from a list. There are a couple of ways you can approach the task; the techniques discussed in this tip make the job quite easy.

Random Numbers in a Range
Excel provides several different functions that you can use to generate random numbers. One of the most useful is the RANDBETWEEN function, which allows you to generate a random number between a lower and upper boundary that you specify.