Most likely the numbers have been pasted as TEXT.

To test enter this in B1 (assuming your numbers are in Col A)
=ISNUMBER(A1)
and copy down

If you get FALSE then it means that your nos are stored as text.

To convert...
Enter 1 in any unused cell
Copy the cell
Select your range of numbers
Right Click on the selection and choose Paste Special-Multiply...


"klafert" wrote:

I can entered data in Excel and use the autosum feature and that works or I
can use the formula =sum(a1..a55) and that works. However, if I copy and
paste numbers from another spreadsheet and tried those function either I get
zero and the formula is correct. I can even put =sum() mark the columns
instead of typing in the range and it will still give me zero. It seems to
be a copy and paste problem? I have never came across this before. I also,
have a program that will list a report and I push a button that sends it to
Excel and same thing.