NORMSDIST

What it does

NORMSDIST(z)

NORMSDIST(z) is the compatibility standard-normal cumulative probability up to z. There is no density switch; mean is zero and standard deviation one.

Try it

=NORMSDIST(0) returns 0.5, half the symmetric distribution. =NORMSDIST(1) is about 0.8413447461.

Quirks

Nonnumeric numeric arguments give #VALUE!. NORMSDIST is not the standard-normal density; use the modern function’s FALSE switch or PHI for that. The compatibility name does not imply that its numerical stages are identical in every Excel build.

How to implement

For the standard-normal CDF, the current measured wrapper stores z=R(abs(x)*c), with binary64 c given by bits 0x3fe6a09e667f3bcd. Evaluate the public ERFC body at z, halve it, and select that half for a negative argument or 1-half for a nonnegative argument. Flush the final subnormal under the current publication rule. The ERFC upper factor remains open; identifying this wrapper does not solve that inner approximation. At zero the wrapper returns a half directly, avoiding an unnecessary transcendental call. R means 64-bit-significand rounding followed by a binary64 store.

Rust code

6 normsdist "NORMSDIST" (1, 1) [V "z"] |s, a, sv| {
    out(s, nl::norm_s_dist_kernel(num(s, a, 0)?, true))
}

No implementation has been published with a Handbook test suite for this function.

Version differences

The recorded environments below distinguish a reading from a same-input comparison. Counts describe captured inputs in each environment; overlapping captures and comparisons are not totals of unique worksheet calls.

The record contains no same-input comparison between these environments. Reading different inputs on different builds does not establish either a version change or cross-build agreement.

Recorded environments and comparison details.

Alternatives

NORM.S.DIST is the modern spelling. NORM.INV and NORM.S.INV map probabilities back to values.

Named variants

No named variants are recorded yet.