F.DIST
Quirk foundCategory: Statistical · Last tested 2026-09-01
Real compatibility results for the F.DIST function: executed in Excel for the web, Google Sheets and LibreOffice Calc, with desktop Excel behavior from Microsoft’s official documentation (we do not run desktop Excel — Excel for the web is a different application and is executed separately). Syntax and links to that documentation are below.
Support matrix
| Engine | Documented | Live-tested | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Excel (desktop) | Yes | No — documented only | n/a |
| Excel for the web | — | Yes (recalc, 2026-09-01) | Supported, behaves as documented |
| Google Sheets | Yes | Yes (Drive import, 2026-08-31) | Supported, behaves as documented |
| LibreOffice Calc | Yes | Yes (25.8.7.3, 2026-08-31) | Quirk found |
LibreOffice version history
We executed the same test cases under each LibreOffice release to show exactly when F.DIST’s support changed — not documentation claims, real results.
| LibreOffice version | Verdict | Tested |
|---|---|---|
| 24.2.0.3 | Quirk found | 2026-08-31 |
| 24.8.7.2 | Quirk found | 2026-08-31 |
| 25.2.0.3 | Quirk found | 2026-08-31 |
| 25.8.7.3 | Quirk found | 2026-08-31 |
Why isn't F.DIST working in LibreOffice?
F.DIST exists in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3, but it is not a drop-in match for
Excel — our executed tests found real behavioral differences (detailed in the test results on this
page). If a formula that works in Excel or Google Sheets misbehaves in LibreOffice, compare your usage
against the failing cases above before assuming your data is wrong.
Discovered quirks
-
=F.DIST(-1,6,4,TRUE) on
LibreOffice Calc returned
#VALUE!, but the documented/expected
result is #NUM!.
Provenance
Excel documents: "If x is negative, F.DIST returns the #NUM! error value." EXECUTED RESULT: all four LibreOffice builds (24.2.0.3, 24.8.7.2, 25.2.0.3, 25.8.7.3) return #VALUE! here instead of the documented #NUM! -- the same systemic #VALUE!-substitution pattern already recorded across this corpus, an error-code difference rather than a computation one.; MISMATCH vs expected: expected '#NUM!', got '#VALUE!'
-
=F.DIST(15.2069,0,4,TRUE) on
LibreOffice Calc returned
#VALUE!, but the documented/expected
result is #NUM!.
Provenance
Excel documents: "If deg_freedom1 < 1, F.DIST returns the #NUM! error value." Zero is the first excluded value. EXECUTED RESULT: all four LibreOffice builds (24.2.0.3, 24.8.7.2, 25.2.0.3, 25.8.7.3) return #VALUE! here instead of the documented #NUM! -- the same systemic #VALUE!-substitution pattern already recorded across this corpus, an error-code difference rather than a computation one.; MISMATCH vs expected: expected '#NUM!', got '#VALUE!'
Executed test cases
Excel for the web (executed 2026-09-01 via OneDrive recalculation)
These values come from Excel for the web, not from desktop Excel. They are two different implementations of the calculation engine, and this run measured only the web one: the corpus was uploaded to OneDrive as .xlsx, recalculated by Excel for the web on open, and downloaded again for readback. Excel for the web is a rolling service with no pinnable version, so the run is identified by its date. Where a value here disagrees with the Expected column — which is Microsoft’s documentation of the desktop product — we cannot tell you whether the web engine diverges from the desktop one or the documentation is wrong about both, because we do not run desktop Excel.
| Formula | Description | Result | Expected | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| =ROUND(F.DIST(15.2069,6,4,TRUE),8) | Microsoft's documented worked example: the cumulative F distribution at 15.2069 with 6 and 4 degrees of freedom | 0.99000004 | 0.99000004ProvenanceMicrosoft's page publishes '=F.DIST(A2,A3,A4,TRUE)' over the data 15.2069 / 6 / 4 with the result 0.99. Re-derived independently with mpmath at 50 decimal digits from the regularized incomplete beta function -- the closed form of the F cumulative distribution, P(F <= x) = I_{d1*x/(d1*x+d2)}(d1/2, d2/2) -- rather than from any statistics library's F routines. The exact value is 0.99000004300276268859, so the page's "0.99" is a 2-decimal presentation of a number that is not 0.99: the example's x is itself a 4-decimal rounding of the true 99th percentile 15.206864861157530. Asserting the published 0.99 at 8 dp would therefore be asserting a false value, so this case asserts the derived 0.99000004 at 8 dp -- which does round to the published 0.99 at the 2 decimals the page prints. The companion F.DIST.RT and FDIST cases, whose pages give x to 7 and 8 decimals, land on 0.01 much more cleanly and are the cross-check on this reading. |
Matched |
| =ROUND(F.DIST(15.2069,6,4,FALSE),7) | Microsoft's documented worked example: the F probability density at the same point | 0.0012238 | 0.0012238ProvenanceMicrosoft's page publishes '=F.DIST(A2,A3,A4,FALSE)' with the result 0.0012238. Re-derived independently with mpmath at 50 digits from the F density (d1*x)^(d1/2) * d2^(d2/2) / ((d1*x+d2)^((d1+d2)/2) * x * B(d1/2,d2/2)) = 0.0012237917087831731591, which rounds to exactly the published 0.0012238 at 7 dp. This case also pins down the cumulative flag: an engine that ignores it returns the ~0.99 of the previous case here. |
Matched |
| =F.DIST(-1,6,4,TRUE) | A negative x, which the documentation excludes | #NUM! | #NUM!ProvenanceExcel documents: "If x is negative, F.DIST returns the #NUM! error value." EXECUTED RESULT: all four LibreOffice builds (24.2.0.3, 24.8.7.2, 25.2.0.3, 25.8.7.3) return #VALUE! here instead of the documented #NUM! -- the same systemic #VALUE!-substitution pattern already recorded across this corpus, an error-code difference rather than a computation one. |
Matched |
| =F.DIST(15.2069,0,4,TRUE) | A numerator degrees of freedom below the documented minimum | #NUM! | #NUM!ProvenanceExcel documents: "If deg_freedom1 < 1, F.DIST returns the #NUM! error value." Zero is the first excluded value. EXECUTED RESULT: all four LibreOffice builds (24.2.0.3, 24.8.7.2, 25.2.0.3, 25.8.7.3) return #VALUE! here instead of the documented #NUM! -- the same systemic #VALUE!-substitution pattern already recorded across this corpus, an error-code difference rather than a computation one. |
Matched |
| =F.DIST("abc",6,4,TRUE) | A non-numeric argument | #VALUE! | #VALUE!ProvenanceExcel documents: "If any argument is nonnumeric, F.DIST returns the #VALUE! error value." |
Matched |
Google Sheets (executed 2026-08-31 via Drive import)
Google Sheets is a rolling service with no pinnable version, so this run is identified by its date. The corpus was imported to Drive as .xlsx, recalculated by Sheets, and exported back for readback.
| Formula | Description | Result | Expected | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| =ROUND(F.DIST(15.2069,6,4,TRUE),8) | Microsoft's documented worked example: the cumulative F distribution at 15.2069 with 6 and 4 degrees of freedom | 0.99000004 | 0.99000004ProvenanceMicrosoft's page publishes '=F.DIST(A2,A3,A4,TRUE)' over the data 15.2069 / 6 / 4 with the result 0.99. Re-derived independently with mpmath at 50 decimal digits from the regularized incomplete beta function -- the closed form of the F cumulative distribution, P(F <= x) = I_{d1*x/(d1*x+d2)}(d1/2, d2/2) -- rather than from any statistics library's F routines. The exact value is 0.99000004300276268859, so the page's "0.99" is a 2-decimal presentation of a number that is not 0.99: the example's x is itself a 4-decimal rounding of the true 99th percentile 15.206864861157530. Asserting the published 0.99 at 8 dp would therefore be asserting a false value, so this case asserts the derived 0.99000004 at 8 dp -- which does round to the published 0.99 at the 2 decimals the page prints. The companion F.DIST.RT and FDIST cases, whose pages give x to 7 and 8 decimals, land on 0.01 much more cleanly and are the cross-check on this reading. |
Matched |
| =ROUND(F.DIST(15.2069,6,4,FALSE),7) | Microsoft's documented worked example: the F probability density at the same point | 0.0012238 | 0.0012238ProvenanceMicrosoft's page publishes '=F.DIST(A2,A3,A4,FALSE)' with the result 0.0012238. Re-derived independently with mpmath at 50 digits from the F density (d1*x)^(d1/2) * d2^(d2/2) / ((d1*x+d2)^((d1+d2)/2) * x * B(d1/2,d2/2)) = 0.0012237917087831731591, which rounds to exactly the published 0.0012238 at 7 dp. This case also pins down the cumulative flag: an engine that ignores it returns the ~0.99 of the previous case here. |
Matched |
| =F.DIST(-1,6,4,TRUE) | A negative x, which the documentation excludes | #NUM! | #NUM!ProvenanceExcel documents: "If x is negative, F.DIST returns the #NUM! error value." EXECUTED RESULT: all four LibreOffice builds (24.2.0.3, 24.8.7.2, 25.2.0.3, 25.8.7.3) return #VALUE! here instead of the documented #NUM! -- the same systemic #VALUE!-substitution pattern already recorded across this corpus, an error-code difference rather than a computation one. |
Matched |
| =F.DIST(15.2069,0,4,TRUE) | A numerator degrees of freedom below the documented minimum | #NUM! | #NUM!ProvenanceExcel documents: "If deg_freedom1 < 1, F.DIST returns the #NUM! error value." Zero is the first excluded value. EXECUTED RESULT: all four LibreOffice builds (24.2.0.3, 24.8.7.2, 25.2.0.3, 25.8.7.3) return #VALUE! here instead of the documented #NUM! -- the same systemic #VALUE!-substitution pattern already recorded across this corpus, an error-code difference rather than a computation one. |
Matched |
| =F.DIST("abc",6,4,TRUE) | A non-numeric argument | #VALUE! | #VALUE!ProvenanceExcel documents: "If any argument is nonnumeric, F.DIST returns the #VALUE! error value." |
Matched |
LibreOffice Calc 25.8.7.3 (tested 2026-08-31)
| Formula | Description | Result | Expected | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| =ROUND(F.DIST(15.2069,6,4,TRUE),8) | Microsoft's documented worked example: the cumulative F distribution at 15.2069 with 6 and 4 degrees of freedom | 0.99000004 | 0.99000004ProvenanceMicrosoft's page publishes '=F.DIST(A2,A3,A4,TRUE)' over the data 15.2069 / 6 / 4 with the result 0.99. Re-derived independently with mpmath at 50 decimal digits from the regularized incomplete beta function -- the closed form of the F cumulative distribution, P(F <= x) = I_{d1*x/(d1*x+d2)}(d1/2, d2/2) -- rather than from any statistics library's F routines. The exact value is 0.99000004300276268859, so the page's "0.99" is a 2-decimal presentation of a number that is not 0.99: the example's x is itself a 4-decimal rounding of the true 99th percentile 15.206864861157530. Asserting the published 0.99 at 8 dp would therefore be asserting a false value, so this case asserts the derived 0.99000004 at 8 dp -- which does round to the published 0.99 at the 2 decimals the page prints. The companion F.DIST.RT and FDIST cases, whose pages give x to 7 and 8 decimals, land on 0.01 much more cleanly and are the cross-check on this reading. |
Matched |
| =ROUND(F.DIST(15.2069,6,4,FALSE),7) | Microsoft's documented worked example: the F probability density at the same point | 0.0012238 | 0.0012238ProvenanceMicrosoft's page publishes '=F.DIST(A2,A3,A4,FALSE)' with the result 0.0012238. Re-derived independently with mpmath at 50 digits from the F density (d1*x)^(d1/2) * d2^(d2/2) / ((d1*x+d2)^((d1+d2)/2) * x * B(d1/2,d2/2)) = 0.0012237917087831731591, which rounds to exactly the published 0.0012238 at 7 dp. This case also pins down the cumulative flag: an engine that ignores it returns the ~0.99 of the previous case here. |
Matched |
| =F.DIST(-1,6,4,TRUE) | A negative x, which the documentation excludes | #VALUE! | #NUM!ProvenanceExcel documents: "If x is negative, F.DIST returns the #NUM! error value." EXECUTED RESULT: all four LibreOffice builds (24.2.0.3, 24.8.7.2, 25.2.0.3, 25.8.7.3) return #VALUE! here instead of the documented #NUM! -- the same systemic #VALUE!-substitution pattern already recorded across this corpus, an error-code difference rather than a computation one. |
Mismatch |
| =F.DIST(15.2069,0,4,TRUE) | A numerator degrees of freedom below the documented minimum | #VALUE! | #NUM!ProvenanceExcel documents: "If deg_freedom1 < 1, F.DIST returns the #NUM! error value." Zero is the first excluded value. EXECUTED RESULT: all four LibreOffice builds (24.2.0.3, 24.8.7.2, 25.2.0.3, 25.8.7.3) return #VALUE! here instead of the documented #NUM! -- the same systemic #VALUE!-substitution pattern already recorded across this corpus, an error-code difference rather than a computation one. |
Mismatch |
| =F.DIST("abc",6,4,TRUE) | A non-numeric argument | #VALUE! | #VALUE!ProvenanceExcel documents: "If any argument is nonnumeric, F.DIST returns the #VALUE! error value." |
Matched |
Docs & syntax
- Excel (desktop): official documentation
- Google Sheets: official documentation
- LibreOffice Calc: official documentation