Working with Roman Numerals

Excel includes a worksheet function that allows you to convert a number to Roman numerals. (Hmmm. Let's see... I was born in MCMLVI. Dang! I'm a classic!) The simplest way to use the Roman numerals is as follows:

=ROMAN(123)

All you need to do, obviously, is replace 123 with the number you want converted. You can use any number between 1 and 3999. (Romans apparently never worked with numbers outside this range.)

You can also, if desired, use a second argument to indicate how the resulting Roman numerals should be put together. The different arguments you can use are 0 through 4, with 0 being the default. An argument of 0 returns Roman numerals in the classic form, and 4 returns an extremely simplified Roman numeral. Values between 0 and 4 return progressively more simplified versions. The simplification of Roman numerals typically only comes into play when dealing with larger numbers. For instance, the following shows the various levels of simplification of the number 1999:

You should note that the ROMAN function returns a text value, and you therefore cannot use the result in any sort of calculation--as far as Excel is concerned, it is no longer a number.