Reformatting from Text to Number doesn't fix the problem of the cells
being treated as Text. Enter a 1 into a free cell that is definitely
General format then copy it then select E27:E42 and Paste Special
using the Multiply operation. The Sum should then be OK if that was
the problem.
Ken Johnson
Rick
"Parry" <Pa...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:FD5F36A6-262A-4776...@microsoft.com...
Select the cell with the text formula, then:
<Ctrl> <Shift> < ~ >
Then
<F2>
Then <Enter>
The first is a keyboard shortcut to format the cell to General.
The second is to enter the "Edit" mode.
And the 3rd is to register the formula.
--
HTH,
RD
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"Parry" <Pa...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:FD5F36A6-262A-4776...@microsoft.com...
Hi Parry,
I know you've solved the problem.
Just thought I'd try to clear up any confusion about my suggestion.
If cells (E27:E42) are formatted as Text and then have numbers entered
into them, a formula summing those cells will return 0.
If you reformat the cells to either General or Number, even though the
format has changed, Excel still treats them as Text and the sum
remains 0.
My suggestion was to get Excel to treat them as numbers by copying a 1
from a General formatted cell, then select E27:E42 then go Edit|Paste
Special... to bring up the Paste Special dialog. On that dialog there
is an area with the heading "Operation". The choices are None
(default), Add, Subtract, Multiply and Divide. If you choose Multiply
(or Divide), then pasting multiplies (or divides) each cell by 1. This
has no effect on the cells' values but from that point on Excel treats
them as numbers and the sum formula should return the expected result.
If you have a cell with a formula and instead of seeing the calculated
result you see the formula, then that can be caused by the cell being
formatted Text before the formula was entered. The above method will
not work in this case.
You can instead reformat the cell to General, select the whole formula
in the Formula Bar (or double click the cell and select it in the
cell) then copy and paste (Ctrl C then Ctrl V) then Enter.
Having said all that, I prefer RagDyer's method. It works the same way
for both formulas and values.
Ken Johnson
Another possibility is that you may have formula view activated. Navigate to
Tools>Options>View tab. Under Window options, uncheck Formulas>OK
--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP
<justin something> wrote in message news:2008741361...@comcast.net...
Try the "Error Checking" option in the Furmala tab to find and fix errors.
In the end I substituted =SUM(A1:A5) for =A1+A2+A3+A4+A5 And low and behold
it works. So there seems to be "SUMthing" wrong with this function under
certain conditions.
Den
One possible cause is copying/pasteing/linking to a cell with embedded £, $
etc signs in them. They will still add up using A1+A2 etc but SUM cannot hack
the embedded signs.
The solution is to use the VALUE function which strips out the embedded
signs and SUM will now work. This will probably mean duplicate cells to make
it work. EG
=VALUE(enter in here the link or cell the problem number is in). Then SUM
this column/row.
This doesn't seem to have anything to do with Options or cell formats.
The Menace