Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Deriving Antilogs.

Deriving Antilogs

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 9, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Excel allows you to use quite a few different trigonometric functions in your worksheets. If you are big into trig, you may wonder why there are no functions that derive antilogs.

An antilog in Excel is technically defined as the inverse of the LOG10 function. The LOG10 function means the logarithm in base 10 of a number. Given that definition, the antilog, or inverse log, of any number is simply 10 raised to that number. For instance, the base-10 log of 4 is 0.60206, and the base-10 antilog of 4 is 10,000 (10 raised to the fourth power). This also means that the base-10 antilog of the base-10 log of 4 is, again, 4. (Raising 10 to the 0.60206 power is 4.)

The following table shows how you would derive the antilogs of the different log functions within Excel.

Base Number Log Antilog (Power)
x y =LOG(x,y) =x^y
e y =LN(y) =e^y
10 y =LOG10(y) =10^y

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2171) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Deriving Antilogs.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Field Reference to Number of Prior Pages

Fields are used for all sorts of purposes in Word, but typically to provide some sort of dynamic information. This tip ...

Discover More

Smoothing Out Data Series

One way you can make your charts look more understandable is by removing the "jaggies" that are inherent to line charts. ...

Discover More

Jumping to the Start or End of a Document

When creating macros, it is often necessary to move the insertion point around the document so that text can be processed ...

Discover More

Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Strange ATAN Results

You may use Excel's trigonometric functions to do some quick calculations, and suddenly notice that the results in your ...

Discover More

Establishing a FLOOR and CEILING

Excel includes a surprising number of functions you can use to round your data. Two such functions are FLOOR and CEILING, ...

Discover More

Throwing Out the Lowest Score

Want to add up a bunch of scores, without including the lowest one in the bunch? You can make a small change to your ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is three more than 2?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.