Mathematically, you calculate a range by subtracting the minimum value from Mathematically, you calculate a range by subtracting the minimum value from the maximum value of a particular dataset. It represents the spread of values within a dataset and is useful for measuring variability – the larger the range, the more spread out and variable your data is. Luckily, finding the range of a set of data is easy when using Excel functions. Here’s how to do it.