Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, and 2013. 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 Antilogs.
Excel allows you to use quite a few different trigonometric functions in your worksheets. If you are big into trig, you may wonder why there are no functions that derive antilogs.
An antilog in Excel is technically defined as the inverse of the LOG10 function. The LOG10 function means the logarithm in base 10 of a number. Given that definition, the antilog, or inverse log, of any number is simply 10 raised to that number. For instance, the base-10 log of 4 is 0.60206, and the base-10 antilog of 4 is 10,000 (10 raised to the fourth power). This also means that the base-10 antilog of the base-10 log of 4 is, again, 4. (Raising 10 to the 0.60206 power is 4.)
The following table shows how you would derive the antilogs of the different log functions within Excel.
| Base | Number | Log | Antilog (Power) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| x | y | =LOG(x,y) | =x^y | |||
| e | y | =LN(y) | =e^y | |||
| 10 | y | =LOG10(y) | =10^y |
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (12486) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, and 2013. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Deriving Antilogs.
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2017-02-14 09:02:48
abdessalem
Greetings.
Using Excel, I would like to compute the anilog of 0,0243. Please tell me how.
Thank you.
2016-04-19 10:03:17
Dave
Ummm... Antilogs have nothing to do with trigonometry.
2016-04-19 09:01:31
Craig Bower
Thus, if you need e, just enter EXP(1).
2016-04-19 08:59:59
Craig Bower
The Excel function EXP(y) is the inverse of LN(y).
2016-04-19 08:50:42
Andrew Sugden
If e is not defined in Excel that begs the question how does the LN(y) formula work?
If you need e then using the formula
=y^(1/LN(y))
returns 2.71828182845905 for any positive y except 1
2013-04-01 14:59:28
Dennis Costello
In addition to the caret operator, there is also the POWER function, with its parameters base and exponent.
Note also that the inverse of LN(y) is indeed "e^y" - but e is not a defined term in Excel. One might define e as a name with an approximated value (such as 2.718281828459045), or as a formula representing the first parts of the Taylor Series expansion of e, such as:
=1 + 1/FACT(1) + 1/FACT(2) + 1/FACT(3) + 1/FACT(4) + 1/FACT(5) + 1/FACT(6) + 1/FACT(7) + 1/FACT(8) + 1/FACT(9) + 1/FACT(10) + 1/FACT(11) + 1/FACT(12) + 1/FACT(13) + 1/FACT(14) + 1/FACT(15) + 1/FACT(16) + 1/FACT(17)
which calculates as many digits of e as Excel will store.
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, and 2013. 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: 
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