Yes, "price" changed to all upper case. but "qty" changed only the "q" in
caps. This worksheet is laid out per instructions in a MS Excel '97 course
book. The intent is to demonstrate using column/row labels in formulas. Named
cells were previously dealt with. My problem is in this situation it doesn't
seem to work, getting either a "NAME" message or a huge number.
I changed "price" to "prices" and it works as advertised. I went into the
function list and found the PRICE function to be financial one involving
securities and their maturity. No wonder the strange number!
I can only surmise that MS has changed that function in the migration from
'97 to XP which is what I'm using.
Thanks to both Don and Debra for your help.

C


"Debra Dalgleish" wrote:

Did Price change to capital letters in the formula? Perhaps it's picking
up a built-in function.

Use UnitPrice or Prices for the column heading, and it should work as
expected.

C wrote:
In going through an Excel course I'm asked to use column labels in a formula.
I've enabled labels in formulas in the options page. I first set the cells up
with the normal cell designations for the formula, eg., A1*D1, and all was
well. When I changed the formula, per lesson instructions, to the column
labels,=(qty)*(price), the resultant was an astronomicaly large negative
number. The initial numbers were 20 and 4.85 and the subject cell is in the
same row. I tried setting up a dummy worksheet using different numbers and
labels and the same procedure and it worked. Any ideas as to what I may be
doing wrong?


--
Debra Dalgleish
Excel FAQ, Tips & Book List
http://www.contextures.com/tiptech.html