A to Z of Excel Functions: The ROMAN Function

Welcome back to our regular A to Z of Excel Functions blog.  Today we look at the ROMAN function.

The ROMAN function

Hand in hand with the ARABIC function in Excel, the ROMAN function converts an Arabic numeral (number, to you and me) to Roman numerals, as text.

It has the following syntax:

The ROMAN function has the following arguments:

• number: this is required and represents the Arabic number you wish to convert
• form: this is optional.  This is a number specifying the type of Roman numeral you want.  The Roman numeral style ranges from Classic to Simplified, becoming more concise as the value of form increases.  For example:

It should be noted that:

• #VALUE! will be returned if number is non-numerical
• #VALUE! will be returned if number is less than zero [0]
• #VALUE! will be returned if number is greater than 3,999
• #VALUE! will be returned if form is included, but is not one of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, TRUE or FALSE
• if number is between zero and strictly less than 4,000, ROMAN truncates the number
• if number is an empty cell, ROMAN returns an empty string ("")
• if number is zero [0], ROMAN returns an empty string ("").

Please see my examples below (including some more obscure uses rather than the usual bar chart images): 

We’ll continue our A to Z of Excel Functions soon.  Keep checking back – there’s a new blog post every business day.

A full page of the function articles can be found here.