Most functions.....SUM included.........have a limit of 30 arguments.

60 non-contiguous cells surpass that limit by twice.

One workaround is to add extra parens.

=SUM((A1,B5,F7,etc))

Note the double parens at each end of formula.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:39:01 -0700, Sue
wrote:

We're trying to get the sum of about 60 cells [not in a range, unfortunately]
on an enormous spreadsheet. As the cells references are entered into the
formula the cells are outlined in color and the cell reference in the formula
turns a corresponding color. All good. After about 30 entries, the cells
are no longer being highlighted and the cell references are in black. After
entering all of the cell references in the formula and closing with the
parenthesis, we hit enter and get an error message. I can't tell you the
exact wording since it's my boss's spreadsheet and she decided to work it out
with subtotals and totals of subtotals. But there must be a reason and I'd
like to know what it is - and how to fix it. Thanks.