Excel MINA Function

Like the MIN function, the MINA function returns the smallest numeric value in a supplied set of data. For example, the MINA function can return the lowest test score, the fastest time in a race, the lowest temperature, or the smallest sales number. Arguments can be provided as constants, or as cell references or ranges:

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

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

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

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

=MINA("5",10) // returns 5
=MIN("5",10) // also returns 5

The difference appears to be that when text values exist in a cell reference, MINA evaluates them as zero in the calculation, whereas MIN simply ignores them. For example, if A1 contains "5", and A2 contains 10:

=MINA(A1,A2) // returns 0
=MIN(A1,A2) // returns 10

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

Notes

• The MINA function ignores empty cells.
• The MINA function accepts up to 255 arguments.
• If arguments contain no numbers, MINA returns 0.
• Arguments can be provided as numbers, names, arrays, references, logical values, or numbers as text.
• MINA 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.