Using + in formulas - why?

K

kylesin

Some individuals at my office use a + in front of cells when they ar
putting calculations within a cell. E.g. =+a1-b2 versus =a1+b2. First
why do they do this?

Second, in a recent spreadsheet, I came across the formul
=AVERAGE(+X:Y). The result of this formula gave me the average of onl
the first cell within the range (i.e. +X... the result of the cell wa
simply X). Second, why is this?

Basically, what does the + do in the front of formulas and what benefi
does it provide?

I tried to search Excel help and even tried to find the answer i
Google to now avail.

Thanks in advance!
 
A

Anne Troy

They take up space. I think it's a carryover from using Lotus 123 and
perhaps even from those files having been converted at some point. I have
done find/replace and found =+ and replace with =.
************
Anne Troy
www.OfficeArticles.com
 
S

Sandy Mann

=AVERAGE(+X:Y). The result of this formula gave me the average of only
the first cell within the range (i.e. +X... the result of the cell was
simply X). Second, why is this?
Click to expand...

Could it be that your formula was in the same row as the first cell? In
XL97 I get whatever number of the range is in the same row as the formula or
#VALUE! if it is in a different row altogether.

SUM and MAX behave the same way and COUNTA returns 1 in any position but
COUNT returns 0 if not lined up with any range number and 1 if within the
same row numbers.

=SUM(--(ISNUMBER(+J10:J18))) returns 0 in any position even although
highlighting --(ISNUMBER(+J10:J18)) and pressing F9 gives
{1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1}and =SUM({1;1}) directly entered returns 2 as expected.

=SUM(--(ISNUMBER(+J10:J18))) array entered returns 9

=SUMPRODUCT(+J10:J18) returns the correct total, presumably because it is
designed to work on an array

=SUBTOTAL(9,J10:J18) can't be entered because it "contains an error"

mmmmm......... Must be a Microsoft *feature* <g>

--
Regards


Sandy
[email protected]
Replace@mailinator with @tiscali.co.uk
 
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