Hide #DIV/0!
 

I've reviewed some of the answers to this issue in this forum, but they
confuse me. I am a complete rookie with excel. From the help file, i was
instructed to select the cell, go to format/cell/protection, and click hide
cell, etc. I protected the sheet, but the formula was still visible.

First, why doesn't this work?
Second, how do i hide #DIV/0! where the cell formula is =SUM(C13/C4).

thanks.

I don't know why you can still see the formula. If you protect
the sheet, cells with "hidden" formulas will not display the
formula. It works fine for me.

There is no way through formatting to hide error values. Instead,
you should write your formula in such as way that the error will
not occur in the first place. E.g.,

=IF(C4=0,"",C13/C4)

--
Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Pearson Software Consulting, LLC
www.cpearson.com



"jeffc4442" wrote in
message
...
I've reviewed some of the answers to this issue in this forum,
but they
confuse me. I am a complete rookie with excel. From the help
file, i was
instructed to select the cell, go to format/cell/protection,
and click hide
cell, etc. I protected the sheet, but the formula was still
visible.

First, why doesn't this work?
Second, how do i hide #DIV/0! where the cell formula is
=SUM(C13/C4).

thanks.

If you really want to hide #DIV/0, you can do it using Conditional
formatting. It'll still be there, but you won't be able to see it.

Select the cell/s of interest.
FORMAT - CONDITIONAL FORMATTING
Formula is (select the cell that is the divisor) and type =0. (it should
look like this = =$A$2=0)
Then format the font color for the text to WHITE (or whatever the background
color is).

If you select multiple rows and/or columns, you may need to remove some or
all of the $ from the formula to get it to work.




"jeffc4442" wrote in message
...
I've reviewed some of the answers to this issue in this forum, but they
confuse me. I am a complete rookie with excel. From the help file, i was
instructed to select the cell, go to format/cell/protection, and click
hide
cell, etc. I protected the sheet, but the formula was still visible.

First, why doesn't this work?
Second, how do i hide #DIV/0! where the cell formula is =SUM(C13/C4).

thanks.

"Chip Pearson" wrote in
:

I don't know why you can still see the formula. If you protect
the sheet, cells with "hidden" formulas will not display the
formula. It works fine for me.

There is no way through formatting to hide error values. Instead,
you should write your formula in such as way that the error will
not occur in the first place. E.g.,

=IF(C4=0,"",C13/C4)


The method I use when SUMming two cells when one or both might not have a
value entered into it yet is:

=IF(C13="","",C13/C4) or
=IF(C4="","",C13/C4)

only because a zero in a cell might be the basis for a logical test in
another formula I have somewhere in the sheet

"MaggieMagill" wrote...
....
The method I use when SUMming two cells when one or both might not
have a value entered into it yet is:

=IF(C13="","",C13/C4) or
....

The test won't catch C4=0, so if C13 isn't "" but C4 is blank or zero, this
formula will happily return #DIV/0! It will prevent #VALUE! errors when C13
is "" rather than blank, but that's not what the OP was trying to avoid.