Oddly Mod…

Back a long, long time ago when I was attending Sheridan Elementary School, there was a popular gambling game among us boys that involved guessing “Odds” or “Evens” regarding the number of marbles the other boy held in his closed fist. Judging by how many times I spent my lunch money on buying new supplies of marbles to gamble with, I apparently wasn’t very good at the game.

Knowing whether entries are Odd or Even can also be helpful at times when working with your databases or tables.  Such instances can include street addresses, employee ID numbers, statistical studies, and several other pursuits.

So is there a Good Formula for identifying an Odd or Even number? As with so many things in Excel, there are several ways to do this, but the following are probably the most intuitive. Assuming your data is in Column A, you could use this formula and copy down your range:

1. =IF(MOD(A1,2)=0,"Even","Odd") This IF formula incorporates the MOD function to generate the results. MOD is an unusual function (It is so Mod, Man!) that finds the Remainder when you divide one figure by another.

~ Or ~

2. =IF((ISEVEN(A1) = TRUE), "Even", "Odd") This IF formula incorporates the (also a bit obscure) ISEVEN function to generate the desired results.

Odds and Evens: Knowing this information can be Just What You Need at times to ease your data analysis.  Now, anyone what to make a guess about the marbles in my fist?