How to Use the Normal Distribution with NORM.DIST in Excel

Use NORM.DIST to find the share of products that fall below, above or between specification limits.

You will learn to

• Find the probability of a value below a limit
• Find the probability above a limit with 1 − NORM.DIST
• Find the share between two limits

How it works

NORM.DIST tells you how likely a value is when your data follows a bell curve with a known mean and standard deviation. With cumulative set to TRUE it returns the probability of getting a value at or below x — for example, the share of cereal boxes filled under the weight printed on the label.

For "above" questions subtract from 1: =1-NORM.DIST(x,mean,sd,TRUE). For "between" questions subtract two cumulative results. Setting cumulative to FALSE returns the height of the curve (the density), which is mostly used for charts.

=NORM.DIST(492,500,4,TRUE)