"manxman" wrote in message
...
"vandenberg p" wrote:

manxman wrote:
: At the start of this formula, I want to add a 7th IF statement that
checks
: the condition of another cell, and sets this whole formula to "--" if
the
: other cell is "". When I try to add it, I get a standard formula error
: message box, and then the last MAX is highlighted. What's going on?
:
=IF((AND((X2+Y2)=MAX((X2+Y2),(AF2+AG2),(AN2+AO2),( AT2+AU2),(AZ2+BA2),(BF2+BG2)),(X2+Y2)=BQ2),V6,IF
: {and so on five more times, checking next AF+AG. The formula ends
with: if
: false, "--". (I have left out the $ before each cell reference for
brevity.
: The entire formula is about 700 to 900 characters long, depending how
far
: down the sheet it is, but I can't add the 7th IF statement to even the
: shortest one.) What prompted the need for the 7th if statement is
: that without the underlying data cells being filled in, a #VALUE!
error is
: reported. Cells X,Y,AF,AG, etc. are themselves formulas, and are set
to
: equal "" when the underlying data are absent. I have two other
formulas very
: similar to this one, one checking just X,AF,AN, etc, and the other
checking
: Y, AG,AO, etc. They don't report the error message. Only the formula
with
: the combined X+Y, AF+AG, etc is a problem. There is also another
combined
: X+Y, AF+AG, etc formula showing the same error message, but it only
has 3 IF
: statments, and I am able to add the beginning 4th to cure the problem.

: Thanks in advance for any help

You hit the limit of nested if's. From the Excel help file:

Nesting level limits A formula can contain up to seven levels of
nested functions. When
Function B is used as an argument in Function A, Function B is a
second-level function. For
instance, the AVERAGE function and the SUM function are both second-level
functions because
they are arguments of the IF function. A function nested within the
AVERAGE function would be
a third-level function, and so on.

I'm aware of the seven level limit. The formula had six levels, and it
won't
accept the seventh. That is what is frustrating me.

It might be worth seeing what happens if you remove some of the other
brackets which may not be needed, such as where you've got (X2+Y2)
and(AF2+AG2), etc. Hopefully those expressions don't need brackets.
--
David Biddulph