You need to enter your formula as an array formula. After you type it in,
press Ctrl-Shift-Enter instead of Enter. If you do it correctly, Excel will
wrap curly brackets {} around your formula (don't type them yourself.)

You could also use SUMPRODUCT instead (it's entered like any normal function):

=SUMPRODUCT(ABS(A1:D1))

Hope this helps,

Hutch

"SteveG" wrote:

I need to sum a row of numbers that are both positive and negative. What I
would like to do is sum them as absolute values.

Example:
A1=2, B1=-3, C1=-1, D1=5
Sum(abs(A1:D1)) should equal 11 (2+3+1+5) not 3 (2-3-1+5).

This doesn't work. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to do this.