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#1
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I have a new young employee who has been entering simple formulas by just
entering the function without any leading operand (e.g., 5/12 instead of =5/12) and it shows the resulting calculation. Apparently this has been working fine until he wanted to enter a decimal number (e.g., 5.2/12) and the cell just shows the formula as if it were text. I can't find any reason for the difference that I can explain to him (other than you are supposed to use the = sign as the leading entry for a formula.) Does anyone have any explanation? |
#2
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Hi,
Entering 5/12 into a cell formatted as general will be converted to a date and as far as I'm aware there's no way around this short of a macro. 5.2/12 isn't interpreted as a date by Excel so not knowing what to do with it it is left as text. If your young employee; without macros, has managed to get 5/12 entered into a cell to evaluate the same as =5/12 then I'd be very surprised. Mike "JD" wrote: I have a new young employee who has been entering simple formulas by just entering the function without any leading operand (e.g., 5/12 instead of =5/12) and it shows the resulting calculation. Apparently this has been working fine until he wanted to enter a decimal number (e.g., 5.2/12) and the cell just shows the formula as if it were text. I can't find any reason for the difference that I can explain to him (other than you are supposed to use the = sign as the leading entry for a formula.) Does anyone have any explanation? |
#3
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Mike:
I did it myself just to check him. The cell is formated as numeric (with 2 decimal places) and the formula switch is turned off in "Options". I can enter 5/12 without any leading "=" or "+" symbol and the result shows in the cell. If I enter a decimal number, it shows the formula. Try it. I can't figure out why. JD "Mike H" wrote: Hi, Entering 5/12 into a cell formatted as general will be converted to a date and as far as I'm aware there's no way around this short of a macro. 5.2/12 isn't interpreted as a date by Excel so not knowing what to do with it it is left as text. If your young employee; without macros, has managed to get 5/12 entered into a cell to evaluate the same as =5/12 then I'd be very surprised. Mike "JD" wrote: I have a new young employee who has been entering simple formulas by just entering the function without any leading operand (e.g., 5/12 instead of =5/12) and it shows the resulting calculation. Apparently this has been working fine until he wanted to enter a decimal number (e.g., 5.2/12) and the cell just shows the formula as if it were text. I can't find any reason for the difference that I can explain to him (other than you are supposed to use the = sign as the leading entry for a formula.) Does anyone have any explanation? |
#4
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if cell is formatted as "number", it will convert fractions consisting of
whole number numerator and denominator to decimal. "JD" wrote: I have a new young employee who has been entering simple formulas by just entering the function without any leading operand (e.g., 5/12 instead of =5/12) and it shows the resulting calculation. Apparently this has been working fine until he wanted to enter a decimal number (e.g., 5.2/12) and the cell just shows the formula as if it were text. I can't find any reason for the difference that I can explain to him (other than you are supposed to use the = sign as the leading entry for a formula.) Does anyone have any explanation? |
#5
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Thanks, BillB. That answer works for me (the process only works with
division - not other math). Now I can explain it to my inquisitive employee. JD "BillB" wrote: if cell is formatted as "number", it will convert fractions consisting of whole number numerator and denominator to decimal. "JD" wrote: I have a new young employee who has been entering simple formulas by just entering the function without any leading operand (e.g., 5/12 instead of =5/12) and it shows the resulting calculation. Apparently this has been working fine until he wanted to enter a decimal number (e.g., 5.2/12) and the cell just shows the formula as if it were text. I can't find any reason for the difference that I can explain to him (other than you are supposed to use the = sign as the leading entry for a formula.) Does anyone have any explanation? |
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