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: Returning the MODE of a Range.
Excel provides the MODE function to help you determine the most frequently recurring value in a range. For instance, let's say you have a table that contains sales orders. One of the columns indicates the number of items ordered in each order. Over time, you may have accumulated quite a bit of data in the table. If you wanted to know the most common number of items ordered, you could use the MODE function.
Suppose your items ordered column is F, and you have 1,200 orders detailed in rows 2 through 1,201. If want to know the most common number of items ordered, you can use the following:
=MODE(F2:F1201)
The value returned represents the most commonly recurring value in the range. Thus, if 520 of your customers ordered 3 items, and the next most common was 314 customers ordering 4 items, then MODE would return the number 3.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2365) 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: Returning the MODE of a Range.
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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: 
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