I am experiencing a bizarre phenomenon in Excel. I received a file from a
customer and there is an instance where, multiplying two cells together, the
answer is incorrect by about 0.02%. I am dealing with large numbers so I
cannot ignore this. I am not a beginner with Excel and have checked all
possibilities such as ensuring cell format is number and not text, etc. Its
almost like its rounding the values off in the background, but its not. Has
anyone got any ideas?

is it set for precision as displayed?
what are the numbers that are being multiplied together and what are the
results?

"Robin" wrote:

I am experiencing a bizarre phenomenon in Excel. I received a file from a
customer and there is an instance where, multiplying two cells together, the
answer is incorrect by about 0.02%. I am dealing with large numbers so I
cannot ignore this. I am not a beginner with Excel and have checked all
possibilities such as ensuring cell format is number and not text, etc. Its
almost like its rounding the values off in the background, but its not. Has
anyone got any ideas?

On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 04:14:01 -0700, "Robin"
wrote:

I am experiencing a bizarre phenomenon in Excel. I received a file from a
customer and there is an instance where, multiplying two cells together, the
answer is incorrect by about 0.02%. I am dealing with large numbers so I
cannot ignore this. I am not a beginner with Excel and have checked all
possibilities such as ensuring cell format is number and not text, etc. Its
almost like its rounding the values off in the background, but its not. Has
anyone got any ideas?

How large are the numbers?

Are you running into Excel precision limitations?

What numbers are you multiplying and what are the results?

When you look at the accuracy of the calculation, you need to look at the
numbers with regard to the precision Excel is using for the process (15 decimal
places) and not the displayed number.


--ron

I am not aware of any instances where Excel's basic arithmetic does not
work correctly. Please post your equation.

Jerry

Robin wrote:

I am experiencing a bizarre phenomenon in Excel. I received a file from a
customer and there is an instance where, multiplying two cells together, the
answer is incorrect by about 0.02%. I am dealing with large numbers so I
cannot ignore this. I am not a beginner with Excel and have checked all
possibilities such as ensuring cell format is number and not text, etc. Its
almost like its rounding the values off in the background, but its not. Has
anyone got any ideas?

It turns out the "precision as displayed" box was ticked. This has corrected
the problem. Thanks for the useful tips.

"Jerry W. Lewis" wrote:

I am not aware of any instances where Excel's basic arithmetic does not
work correctly. Please post your equation.

Jerry

Robin wrote:

I am experiencing a bizarre phenomenon in Excel. I received a file from a
customer and there is an instance where, multiplying two cells together, the
answer is incorrect by about 0.02%. I am dealing with large numbers so I
cannot ignore this. I am not a beginner with Excel and have checked all
possibilities such as ensuring cell format is number and not text, etc. Its
almost like its rounding the values off in the background, but its not. Has
anyone got any ideas?

It appears as I've just found an instance.

Two of the engineers I work with are having basic arithmetic problems. One
is running Excel 2002 SP3 and the other Excel 2003. While working on a
spreadsheet, everything will be fine and randomly after entering a
calculation in a cell, the result will be zero, and all other calculations in
the sheet will change to zero as well. I didn't believe it until they showed
me a video of entering "=1+1" into a cell and getting "0" back, and then
today I actually watched it do that in front of me.

I have never seen anything like this before, nor can I find any KB articles
talking about a problem like this. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

-Nick

"Jerry W. Lewis" wrote:

I am not aware of any instances where Excel's basic arithmetic does not
work correctly. Please post your equation.

Jerry

Robin wrote:

I am experiencing a bizarre phenomenon in Excel. I received a file from a
customer and there is an instance where, multiplying two cells together, the
answer is incorrect by about 0.02%. I am dealing with large numbers so I
cannot ignore this. I am not a beginner with Excel and have checked all
possibilities such as ensuring cell format is number and not text, etc. Its
almost like its rounding the values off in the background, but its not. Has
anyone got any ideas?

I cannot reproduce this behavior in Excel 2003 SP-3, even with recalculation
set to manual. What are the exact circumstances under which it occurs in a
new spreadsheet after rebooting the computer and relaunching Excel?

Jerry

"Nicholas Mucci" wrote:

It appears as I've just found an instance.

Two of the engineers I work with are having basic arithmetic problems. One
is running Excel 2002 SP3 and the other Excel 2003. While working on a
spreadsheet, everything will be fine and randomly after entering a
calculation in a cell, the result will be zero, and all other calculations in
the sheet will change to zero as well. I didn't believe it until they showed
me a video of entering "=1+1" into a cell and getting "0" back, and then
today I actually watched it do that in front of me.

I have never seen anything like this before, nor can I find any KB articles
talking about a problem like this. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

-Nick

"Jerry W. Lewis" wrote:

I am not aware of any instances where Excel's basic arithmetic does not
work correctly. Please post your equation.

Jerry

Jerry,

I have witnessed it twice, although the engineers complaining about it have
witnessed it at least 10 times. This is a new problem that we have only seen
start in the past couple of weeks. It doesn't matter what Excel spreadsheet
they open, at a random point when a calculation is entered in a cell, Excel
will indicate that it is equal to zero, regardless of whether or not that is
true. At this time, all other calculations in all other cells also become
zero. However, after the calculation which causes everything to screw up is
entered, the Undo command will revert all calculations to their prior values.
Once the problem occurs, all further calculations will result in zero until
Excel is terminated and then restarted, and everything will work correctly
again. I wish I could give you a timeframe as to how long it takes before
this happens, (especially on a new file) but reproducing the problem has
proven difficult as it appears to occur randomly. I'll post back with more
as I get it.

-Nick

"Jerry W. Lewis" wrote:

I cannot reproduce this behavior in Excel 2003 SP-3, even with recalculation
set to manual. What are the exact circumstances under which it occurs in a
new spreadsheet after rebooting the computer and relaunching Excel?

Jerry

"Nicholas Mucci" wrote:

It appears as I've just found an instance.

Two of the engineers I work with are having basic arithmetic problems. One
is running Excel 2002 SP3 and the other Excel 2003. While working on a
spreadsheet, everything will be fine and randomly after entering a
calculation in a cell, the result will be zero, and all other calculations in
the sheet will change to zero as well. I didn't believe it until they showed
me a video of entering "=1+1" into a cell and getting "0" back, and then
today I actually watched it do that in front of me.

I have never seen anything like this before, nor can I find any KB articles
talking about a problem like this. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

-Nick

"Jerry W. Lewis" wrote:

I am not aware of any instances where Excel's basic arithmetic does not
work correctly. Please post your equation.

Jerry