BETADIST function

Returns the cumulative beta probability density function. The beta distribution is commonly used to study variation in the percentage of something across samples, such as the fraction of the day people spend watching television.

Important: This function has been replaced with one or more new functions that may provide improved accuracy and whose names better reflect their usage. Although this function is still available for backward compatibility, you should consider using the new functions from now on, because this function may not be available in future versions of Excel.

For more information about the new function, see BETA.DIST function.

Syntax

BETADIST(x,alpha,beta,[A],[B])

The BETADIST function syntax has the following arguments:

• X     Required. The value between A and B at which to evaluate the function.

• Alpha     Required. A parameter of the distribution.

• Beta     Required. A parameter of the distribution.

• A     Optional. A lower bound to the interval of x.

• B     Optional. An upper bound to the interval of x.

Remarks

• If any argument is nonnumeric, BETADIST returns the #VALUE! error value.

• If alpha ≤ 0 or beta ≤ 0, BETADIST returns the #NUM! error value.

• If x < A, x > B, or A = B, BETADIST returns the #NUM! error value.

• If you omit values for A and B, BETADIST uses the standard cumulative beta distribution, so that A = 0 and B = 1.

Example

Copy the example data in the following table, and paste it in cell A1 of a new Excel worksheet. For formulas to show results, select them, press F2, and then press Enter. If you need to, you can adjust the column widths to see all the data.

Data	Description
2	Value at which to evaluate the function
8	Parameter of the distribution
10	Parameter of the distribution
1	Lower bound
3	Upper bound
Formula	Description	Result
=BETADIST(A2,A3,A4,A5,A6)	Cumulative beta probability density function, for the above parameters	0.6854706