Excel's formula menu is helping you with the Average because you are in
a cell that has numbers immediately adjacent to the cell (either in a
row, if you are at the right of the block of cells, or in a column if
you are at the bottom of the block of cells). It's assuming that you
want to average the cells and therefore is defaulting in the range of
cells to the left or above.

When you try to do the Sum, Excel is still trying to help, but now
you've added a new row or column to the block of cells and Excel isn't
capable of knowing that you really don't want to include the calculated
averages in the sum.

The good news is that you don't have to rely on the formula menu to
create the formulas for you.

Click on the cell you want the Sum to be in, and type the following:

=Sum(

Then click and hold on the top (or left-most cell whose value you want
included in the sum) and drag the cursor down to the bottom (or
right-most) cell you want included in the sum.

Then just press the Enter key and Excel will add the range of cells you
selected and a closing parenthesis) to the cell formula and you will
have your sum.

Note that once you get the Average and Sum formulas set up at the
bottom of a column or at the left of a row, you can copy the two cells
that hold the formulas and paste them into the rest of the columns (or
rows) that you need the Average and Sum of. (You have to copy and paste
the column formulas on the columns - then copy the row formulas and
paste them on the rows. If you tried copying the column formulas for
the average and sum and pasted them on at the right side of the block of
numbers in the rows, you wouldn't get the right answers).

Hope this helps...


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jamescox
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