Hi, does anyone know the best way to test if the 1st character in a cell in a
number or a letter in an IF statement? I tried =IF(ISNUMBER(MID(A1,1,1)),do
this if true, do this if false where A1 could be a202 or 202 and it didn't
work. I clearly don't understand the ISNUMBER command. I even tried it alone
=ISNUMBER(MID(A1,1,1) where A1 was a202 and 202 and they both came back
FALSE. Any ideas?

Thanks,
John

Try IsNumeric instead

hth

Geoff K

"johnrb7865" wrote:

Hi, does anyone know the best way to test if the 1st character in a cell in a
number or a letter in an IF statement? I tried =IF(ISNUMBER(MID(A1,1,1)),do
this if true, do this if false where A1 could be a202 or 202 and it didn't
work. I clearly don't understand the ISNUMBER command. I even tried it alone
=ISNUMBER(MID(A1,1,1) where A1 was a202 and 202 and they both came back
FALSE. Any ideas?

Thanks,
John

On 15 Jul., 23:46, johnrb7865
wrote:
Hi, does anyone know the best way to test if the 1st character in a cell in a
number or a letter in an IF statement? I tried =IF(ISNUMBER(MID(A1,1,1)),do
this if true, do this if false where A1 could be a202 or 202 and it didn't
work. I clearly don't understand the ISNUMBER command. I even tried it alone
=ISNUMBER(MID(A1,1,1) where A1 was a202 and 202 and they both came back
FALSE. *Any ideas?

Thanks,
John

Hi John

=isnumber(A1)

will return true if A1 contains a number, otherwise it returns false.

Regards,
Per

Mid returns a character which is not a number. try this. I used Left
instead orf mid but they are equivalent

=IF(AND(LEFT(A1,1)="0",LEFT(A1,1)<="9"),TRUE,FALS E)

"johnrb7865" wrote:

Hi, does anyone know the best way to test if the 1st character in a cell in a
number or a letter in an IF statement? I tried =IF(ISNUMBER(MID(A1,1,1)),do
this if true, do this if false where A1 could be a202 or 202 and it didn't
work. I clearly don't understand the ISNUMBER command. I even tried it alone
=ISNUMBER(MID(A1,1,1) where A1 was a202 and 202 and they both came back
FALSE. Any ideas?

Thanks,
John

=mid() will always return text.

=IF(ISNUMBER(-MID(A1,1,1))

If A1 contained A202, then -A would cause an error--not a number.

If A1 contained 202, then -2 (and the minus will coerce the text two to a number
two) and that's a number.


johnrb7865 wrote:

Hi, does anyone know the best way to test if the 1st character in a cell in a
number or a letter in an IF statement? I tried =IF(ISNUMBER(MID(A1,1,1)),do
this if true, do this if false where A1 could be a202 or 202 and it didn't
work. I clearly don't understand the ISNUMBER command. I even tried it alone
=ISNUMBER(MID(A1,1,1) where A1 was a202 and 202 and they both came back
FALSE. Any ideas?

Thanks,
John

--

Dave Peterson

one way? if the first char is a number
=ISNUMBER(VALUE(MID(I1,1,1)))

--
Don Guillett
Microsoft MVP Excel
SalesAid Software

"johnrb7865" wrote in message
...
Hi, does anyone know the best way to test if the 1st character in a cell
in a
number or a letter in an IF statement? I tried
=IF(ISNUMBER(MID(A1,1,1)),do
this if true, do this if false where A1 could be a202 or 202 and it didn't
work. I clearly don't understand the ISNUMBER command. I even tried it
alone
=ISNUMBER(MID(A1,1,1) where A1 was a202 and 202 and they both came back
FALSE. Any ideas?

Thanks,
John

The reason the formula failed is because the op id not complete the question
IF IsNumber = Something then do this do that. The construction of Mid works
just as well as Left as written.

Geoff K

"Joel" wrote:

Mid returns a character which is not a number. try this. I used Left
instead orf mid but they are equivalent

=IF(AND(LEFT(A1,1)="0",LEFT(A1,1)<="9"),TRUE,FALS E)

"johnrb7865" wrote:

Hi, does anyone know the best way to test if the 1st character in a cell in a
number or a letter in an IF statement? I tried =IF(ISNUMBER(MID(A1,1,1)),do
this if true, do this if false where A1 could be a202 or 202 and it didn't
work. I clearly don't understand the ISNUMBER command. I even tried it alone
=ISNUMBER(MID(A1,1,1) where A1 was a202 and 202 and they both came back
FALSE. Any ideas?

Thanks,
John

Thanks Joel, that worked great.

John

"Joel" wrote:

Mid returns a character which is not a number. try this. I used Left
instead orf mid but they are equivalent

=IF(AND(LEFT(A1,1)="0",LEFT(A1,1)<="9"),TRUE,FALS E)

"johnrb7865" wrote:

Hi, does anyone know the best way to test if the 1st character in a cell in a
number or a letter in an IF statement? I tried =IF(ISNUMBER(MID(A1,1,1)),do
this if true, do this if false where A1 could be a202 or 202 and it didn't
work. I clearly don't understand the ISNUMBER command. I even tried it alone
=ISNUMBER(MID(A1,1,1) where A1 was a202 and 202 and they both came back
FALSE. Any ideas?

Thanks,
John