The Excel IMAGINARY Function

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Related Function:  IMREAL Function

Basic Description

The Excel IMAGINARY function returns the imaginary coefficient of a supplied complex number

- i.e. for the complex number a + bi, the Excel Imaginary function returns the value b.

The syntax of the function is :

where the inumber argument is a complex number.

Note that complex numbers are simply stored as text in Excel. When a text string in the format "a+bi" or "a+bj" is supplied to one of Excel's built-in complex number functions, this is interpreted as a complex number.

Also the complex number functions can accept a simple numeric value, as this is equivalent to a complex number whose imaginary coefficient is equal to 0.

Therefore, the inumber argument can be supplied to the Excel Imaginary function as any of the following:

These are all included in the examples below.

Excel Imaginary Function Examples

In the example below, the Excel Imaginary function is used find the imaginary coefficient of different complex numbers.

The format of the function is shown in the spreadsheet on the left and the results are shown in the spreadsheet on the right.

Further information on the Excel Imaginary function can be found on the Microsoft Office website.

Imaginary Function Errors

If you get an error from the Excel Imaginary Function, this is likely to be one of the following: