Here is a simplified example, using the power of range names:

Put following texts into A10:A14: Select,Yes,No,Sometimes,Maybe
Now put next to it into B10:B14 the corresponding values: 0,1,0,0.25,0.5

Now select A10:B14 and go to menu InsertNameCreatecheck "Left column" OK
You've just created range names for B10 to B14.

Create a cell validation for cell B1 by using the list in A10:A14 as
criteria.
Choose "Select" from the drop-down list in B1 and copy the cell through D1.

You now should have values "Select" in B1:D1.

Now here comes the meat:
Put following formula into A1:
=INDIRECT(B1)+INDIRECT(C1)+INDIRECT(D1)

This will result in the sum of B1:D1, based on the text is these cells.
Since the formula will result in an error message if any of the cells is
blank, I added the "Select" value as a default (if you want to be nice you
can use "Please_select"). Of course you could also trap the error with an
additional IF condition, but I wanted to keep the formula simple.

Cheers,

Joerg Mochikun



"gimme_donuts" wrote in message
...
it has to be very easy but I have not found the way to do it.

What I'm tryig to do is some list of companies and for their services I
want
to use Yes for 1, No for 0, Sometimes for 0.5 and Maybe for 0.25.

just asigning these numbers to the text is what I want, so that it is
easely
readable and editable for everyone and it still can make some addition of
it
in the end.

Example:

Kwik e-mart Fruits - Vegetables - Meat - Fish - Fresh
Total
score
Yes Yes Sometimes No Maybe
2.75


To add this data, I used the validation function so that there is a
dropdown
menu for each criteria (Yes, No, Sometimes, Maybe)