Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, and Excel in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Deriving a Secant and Cosecant.

Deriving a Secant and Cosecant

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 2, 2025)

Excel includes many built-in functions that allow you to use a wide range of trigonometric functions. If you need to determine either the secant or cosecant of an angle, you can use the SEC and CSC functions:

=SEC(A1)
=CSC(A1)

The value in A1 must be the angle expressed in radians.

Both the SEC and CSC functions were introduced in Excel 2013. If you are using an older version of Excel you can use a simple formula to derive the values. Let's assume that an angle value, in radians, is stored in cell B7. To derive the secant of the angle, you can use the following formula:

=1/COS(B7)

Likewise, if you need to know the cosecant of the angle, the following formula will do the trick:

=1/SIN(B7)

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (10084) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Deriving a Secant and Cosecant.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Passing Parameters to Functions

Functions can be used to perform repetitive tasks and return values to your main program. You can also pass values to a ...

Discover More

Ignoring Other Applications

Do you want Excel to ignore other applications that may be running on your computer? You can configure the program to do ...

Discover More

Spreading Out Worksheet Rows

If someone sends you a worksheet that has lots of data in it, you might want to "spread out" the data so you can have ...

Discover More

Excel Smarts for Beginners! Featuring the friendly and trusted For Dummies style, this popular guide shows beginners how to get up and running with Excel while also helping more experienced users get comfortable with the newest features. Check out Excel 2019 For Dummies today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Getting Rid of Unused Range Names

Excel allows you to easily create names for different ranges in your workbook. If you ever want to clean up the list of ...

Discover More

Adding a Statement Showing an Automatic Row Count

If you want to add a dynamic statement to a worksheet that indicates how many rows are in a data table, you might be at a ...

Discover More

Calculating the Interval between Occurrences

With a long list of items in a worksheet, you may want to determine the last time a particular item appeared in the list. ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is six minus 5?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.