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Myrna Larson
 
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Hi, Aladin:

I was going to say that doesn't work for me, but surprisingly (to me), it
does!

According to the documentation for the N function, it shouldn't work. If I
type a 0 in B5, then write in another cell the formula =N(B5), I get 0. But
your formula returns NoOrders.

The question is, WHY? Let's say you have 100 in B24 and 0 in B5. N tests
whether 0 is a number, which it is. Therefore the formula *should* return
100/0, and ultimately a divide-by-zero error.

OTOH, if you change the formula to

=IF(N(B24/B5),B24/B5,"NoOrders")

you get #DIV/0! rather than NoOrders. B24/B5 in this case returns an error
value, and N(B24/B5) returns that same error value, #DIV/0! IF seems to treat
this error result as non-0, and returns the result of B24/B5, or an error.

I find this behavior to be very bizarre and counter-intuitive.

I would use a formula that doesn't produce all of these "surprises", maybe
something like

=IF(ISERROR(B24/B5),"NoOrders",B24/B5)



On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 19:41:11 +0200, Aladin Akyurek wrote:

=IF(N(B5),B24/B5,"NoOrders")

carl wrote:
In this formula: = b24/b5

If b5 is blank or zero, can the formula be written so that it will return
"NoOrders" ?

Thank you in advance.