ExcelBanter - View Single Post - Why do people use =+A2 or =+d3? What does the "+" reference?

joeu2004

"Chris 21222222" <Chris wrote:
Subject: Why do people use =+A2 or =+d3? What does the "+" reference?

(Why do people put their question only in the Subject line instead of [also]
the body of the message? ;-)

Anyone who enters =+A3 manually is probably emulating Excel, thinking it is
required.

The real question is: why does Excel convert formulas of the form +A1+B1 to
=+A1+B1 instead of simply =A1+B1?

As others have noted, the "+formula" syntax comes from Lotus 123, another
spreadsheet application.

But past discussions of this, someone has also pointed out that that
notation is useful, even in Excel, when using a numeric keypad to enter
numeric-only formulas. The numeric keypad has "+", but typically not "=".

In any case, when Excel changes the "+formula", there is no reason for it to
retain the "+". It could simply substitute an "=" for "+".