Something like this may work for you. This assumes B1 is being subtracted
from A1.

=IF(NOT(ISNUMBER(B1)),A1,A1-B1)

HTH,
Paul

" wrote in
message ...
I am working in a large spreadsheet and need to be able to subtract to
columns without adding any new columns or using subtotals. If I have
words
and numbers in the columns, ex. "none", is there a function that will
eliminate the "value" error message when I subtract (ex. 9-none = value,
but
i want none or any text to be viewed as zero)?