Excel MAXA Function

Like the MAX function, the MAXA function returns the largest numeric value in a supplied set of data. For example, the MAXA function can return the highest test score, the slowest time in a race, the maximum temperature, or the top sales number. Arguments can be provided as constants, or as references:

=MAXA(5,10)
=MAXA(A1,A2,A3)
-MAXA(A1:A10)

The primary difference between MAX and MAXA is that MAXA evaluates TRUE and FALSE values as 1 and 0 respectively. Microsoft documentation also suggests that MAXA evaluates numbers entered as text differently from MAX:

If you want to include logical values and text representations of numbers in a reference as part of the calculation, use the MAXA function.

This is a bit confusing. In my testing, MAX and MAXA both evaluate text representations of numbers when supplied directly as arguments. For example:

=MAXA(5,"10") // returns 10
=MAX(5,"10") // also returns 10

The difference appears to be that when cell references include text, MAXA evaluates them as zero in the calculation, whereas MAX simply ignores them. For example, if A1 contains -5, and A2 contains "10" (as a text value):

=MAXA(A1,A2)// returns 0
=MAX(A1,A2) // returns -5

Further, MAXA appears to evaluate any text value in a cell reference as zero (i.e. "apple" would also evaluate as zero).

Notes

• The MAXA function ignores empty cells.
• The MAXA function accepts up to 255 arguments.
• If arguments contain no numbers, MAXA returns 0.
• Arguments can be provided as numbers, names, arrays, references, logical values, or numbers as text.
• MAXA function evaluates TRUE and FALSE values as 1 and 0 respectively.
• In a cell reference, a "number as text" is evaluated (and included) as zero.