When using MS Works I can enter letters and numbers in a cell and the total of the cells in a row will be calculated correctly(for my particular requirement) by ignoring anyone of the cells in the row which has letters and numbers together. All the cells are formated as 'General'.

When I try to do this task in Excel it gives an error in the result cell.
Note that any cell may have a mixture of letters and cells.
Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you
James


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Use the SUM function.

=SUM(A1:A3)

Instead of doing this:

=A1+A2+A3

The SUM function will ignore any cells that contain text.

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


<James McErlain wrote in message ...
When using MS Works I can enter letters and numbers in a cell and the
total of the cells in a row will be calculated correctly(for my particular
requirement) by ignoring anyone of the cells in the row which has letters
and numbers together. All the cells are formated as 'General'.

When I try to do this task in Excel it gives an error in the result cell.
Note that any cell may have a mixture of letters and cells.
Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you
James


Submitted via EggHeadCafe - Software Developer Portal of Choice
Bing Search RSS with Silverlight 3 RIA Domain Service
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/tutorials...with-silv.aspx

If A1 thru A3 contain:

1
junk
3

then =A1+A2+A3 will show an error
however =SUM(A1:A3) will show 4
This is because the SUM() function ignores text.
--
Gary''s Student - gsnu200909


"James McErlain" wrote:

When using MS Works I can enter letters and numbers in a cell and the total of the cells in a row will be calculated correctly(for my particular requirement) by ignoring anyone of the cells in the row which has letters and numbers together. All the cells are formated as 'General'.

When I try to do this task in Excel it gives an error in the result cell.
Note that any cell may have a mixture of letters and cells.
Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you
James


Submitted via EggHeadCafe - Software Developer Portal of Choice
Bing Search RSS with Silverlight 3 RIA Domain Service
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/tutorials...with-silv.aspx
.

SUM function ignores text cells.

ab123 is text

123 is a number

=SUM(A1:A10) will sum cells with numbers only.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

On Wed, 20 Jan 2010 11:01:04 -0800, James McErlain wrote:

When using MS Works I can enter letters and numbers in a cell and the total of the cells in a row will be calculated correctly(for my particular requirement) by ignoring anyone of the cells in the row which has letters and numbers together. All the cells are formated as 'General'.

When I try to do this task in Excel it gives an error in the result cell.
Note that any cell may have a mixture of letters and cells.
Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you
James


Submitted via EggHeadCafe - Software Developer Portal of Choice
Bing Search RSS with Silverlight 3 RIA Domain Service
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/tutorials...with-silv.aspx