SKEW Function (Gnumeric)

• Introduced: Gnumeric 0.19 release notes record its addition.
• Supported in: Gnumeric 1.12.62; no retirement is established.
• Scope: Desktop Gnumeric with its Statistics plugin. English comma-separated formulas are shown.
• Checked: October 14, 2026. The tables and named advanced check use 1.12.57 ssconvert. Current 1.12.62 source was inspected; that release was not executed.

SKEW returns the adjusted sample skewness coefficient. Positive values indicate asymmetry toward larger values and negative values toward smaller values. Zero skewness alone does not prove symmetry or normality. The coefficient is dimensionless and requires a meaningful finite third moment for population interpretation. Versioned function help.

=SKEW(value1[,value2,...])

• value1,...: observations supplied directly or through ranges. At least three usable numbers and nonzero variance are needed.
• Referenced text, booleans and blanks are ignored. Direct arguments changed between the tested and current source versions.

Brackets mark optional arguments; do not type them. Current implementation.

Enter these columns as numbers, except for the explicitly typed H column. F7 and H7 are genuinely empty.

Use an apostrophe entry marker if needed to store H5 as text; it is not part of the stored value. The results below are native outputs rounded to 12 decimal places for readability, rather than application screenshots.

The recorded values 1,2,3,4,10 in F2:F6 have sample skewness approximately 1.697056274848. The larger value pulls the shape toward the right. Reflecting the values to −1,−2,−3,−4,−10 in M2:M6 changes the result to its negative.

The native check =SKEW(F2:F6)+SKEW(M2:M6) is zero. This checks sign interpretation without assuming that a particular skewness cutoff diagnoses normality. Keep the raw observations when explaining the result.

Using the sample standard deviation s, Gnumeric computes n Σ((x−m)/s)^3 / ((n−1)(n−2)). If g₁ is the population-style coefficient returned by SKEWP, the adjustment is sqrt(n(n−1))/(n−2) × g₁.

For F2:F6, g₁≈1.138419957661 and n=5, giving the adjusted value above. Adding 100 or multiplying the data by a positive constant leaves skewness unchanged. Multiplying by a negative constant reverses its sign. The symmetric set 1,2,3,4 gives zero, and repeated observations such as 1,1,1,2,5 are valid inputs.

The 1.12.57 callback ignores direct strings and logical values. The 1.12.62 callback adds direct-string parsing: numeric text becomes a number and failed numeric conversion gives #VALUE!. Only the sample variants KURT and SKEW also add direct-boolean conversion. Referenced strings and booleans remain excluded. See the current collector.

The exact first release of these collection changes is not established. The comparison concerns the stated English inputs; locale-dependent numeric text was not tested.

Fewer than three numeric observations or zero variance produces #DIV/0!. Count numeric observations rather than occupied cells. A cell containing a number as text is excluded when referenced; its storage type matters.

• Current worksheet implementation
• Tested-version worksheet implementation
• Current moment calculation

Both the stale SUM cache and the uncached SUM recalculated correctly. Saved formula identities and typed inputs were checked in the native workbook exports. The importer reported unsupported style-extension elements; this does not establish complete formatting support. GUI entry, other locales and later-version execution were not tested.

AVERAGE, VAR, STDEV.