Not really suitable as I want the figures with the * to remain in
front of the rainfall amount when the sheet is printed.

Anything with the * denotes the amount is from deposits from dew or
fog rather than normal rain.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

Cheers, K

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 12:22:28 +0530, "R.VENKATARAMAN"
&&& wrote:

why not try this

edit replace
find what=~*
replce with
(blank)
click replace all.

in such case *0.2 which was a text becomes a number
when adding only the numbers are added and the strings like "trace" are
ignored.

in your method perhaps the numbers remain as text
if no other text is there the sum function takes the number - texts as
numbers
this is only my guess. mine is excel 2000