Found a SERIOUS bug in Excel !!!
 

Dear everyone,

I have found today a very annoying bug today while working on Excel
2003, below is the thing, please advise your opinion as how should i
troubleshoot the issue:

I have a Sheet detailing each and every order of various products like
in this way:

A= CUSTOMER NAME, B= PRODUCT NAME, C= QUANTITY.... (OTHER ARE
IRRELEVANT TO MENTION)

Sometimes our customer request partial shipment so lets say the product
is Gamma, i enter info in excel in following way:

A1(merged with cell A2)= ABC company, B1 & B2 (not merged)= Gamma,
C1=5, C2=10

At the end of this huge list i have made a simple summary for quick
ref. in cell E141 I put an array formula to know how much a specific
customer has bought a specific product:

E141 {=SUM(IF((LEFT(A1:A117, 3)="ABC")*(LEFT(B1:B117, 5)="Gamma"),
C4:C117, 0))}

The above formula gave me after summing C1 (didnt included C2)

I have checked for the reason and found that when i click cell A1
merged with A2... It shows under name Box A1 so in this way A2 lost its
identity !! hence when the above formula calculates it didnt checked for
cell C2...

I can troubleshoot by simply entering the customer name separatly into
A1 & A2 but I wouldn't prefer this cuz merged cells indicates same
order to me and you would probably agree that its nonsense to mention
the customer's name 2 times instead of mentioning 1 time for his single
order with two separate shipments...

I think i have pointed towards a serious issue.


--
irresistible007


------------------------------------------------------------------------
irresistible007's Profile: http://www.hightechtalks.com/m63
View this thread: http://www.hightechtalks.com/t2295667

Found a SERIOUS bug in Excel !!!
 

If your formulas are as unintelligible as your explanation of the problem,
it's hardly surprising if your sheet doesn't work as you expect. Fuzzy
writing = fuzzy thinking.





"irresistible007"
wrote in message
...

Dear everyone,

I have found today a very annoying bug today while working on Excel
2003, below is the thing, please advise your opinion as how should i
troubleshoot the issue:

I have a Sheet detailing each and every order of various products like
in this way:

A= CUSTOMER NAME, B= PRODUCT NAME, C= QUANTITY.... (OTHER ARE
IRRELEVANT TO MENTION)

Sometimes our customer request partial shipment so lets say the product
is Gamma, i enter info in excel in following way:

A1(merged with cell A2)= ABC company, B1 & B2 (not merged)= Gamma,
C1=5, C2=10

At the end of this huge list i have made a simple summary for quick
ref. in cell E141 I put an array formula to know how much a specific
customer has bought a specific product:

E141 {=SUM(IF((LEFT(A1:A117, 3)="ABC")*(LEFT(B1:B117, 5)="Gamma"),
C4:C117, 0))}

The above formula gave me after summing C1 (didnt included C2)

I have checked for the reason and found that when i click cell A1
merged with A2... It shows under name Box A1 so in this way A2 lost its
identity !! hence when the above formula calculates it didnt checked for
cell C2...

I can troubleshoot by simply entering the customer name separatly into
A1 & A2 but I wouldn't prefer this cuz merged cells indicates same
order to me and you would probably agree that its nonsense to mention
the customer's name 2 times instead of mentioning 1 time for his single
order with two separate shipments...

I think i have pointed towards a serious issue.


--
irresistible007


------------------------------------------------------------------------
irresistible007's Profile: http://www.hightechtalks.com/m63
View this thread: http://www.hightechtalks.com/t2295667

Found a SERIOUS bug in Excel !!!
 

That is not a bug, but a misunderstanding by you of how merged cells works.


When you merge cells A1 and A2, you are not copying the value in A1 to A2,
but just increasing the space that A1 takes up by cell A2. A2 actually still
exists, and is empty, so will fail the tests in your formula.

To see this, somewhere on the worksheet, enter =A2, you will see you get 0,
not ABC Company.

If you must persist with merged cells, you could use

=SUMPRODUCT(--(MOD(ROW(A1:A116),2)=1),--(LEFT(A1:A116,3)="ABC"),--(LEFT(B1:B
116,5)="Gamma"),C1:C116)+SUMPRODUCT(--(MOD(ROW(A2:A118),2)=0),--(LEFT(A1:A11
7,3)="ABC"),--(LEFT(B2:B118,5)="Gamma"),C2:C118)

--

HTH

RP
(remove nothere from the email address if mailing direct)


"irresistible007"
wrote in message
...

Dear everyone,

I have found today a very annoying bug today while working on Excel
2003, below is the thing, please advise your opinion as how should i
troubleshoot the issue:

I have a Sheet detailing each and every order of various products like
in this way:

A= CUSTOMER NAME, B= PRODUCT NAME, C= QUANTITY.... (OTHER ARE
IRRELEVANT TO MENTION)

Sometimes our customer request partial shipment so lets say the product
is Gamma, i enter info in excel in following way:

A1(merged with cell A2)= ABC company, B1 & B2 (not merged)= Gamma,
C1=5, C2=10

At the end of this huge list i have made a simple summary for quick
ref. in cell E141 I put an array formula to know how much a specific
customer has bought a specific product:

E141 {=SUM(IF((LEFT(A1:A117, 3)="ABC")*(LEFT(B1:B117, 5)="Gamma"),
C4:C117, 0))}

The above formula gave me after summing C1 (didnt included C2)

I have checked for the reason and found that when i click cell A1
merged with A2... It shows under name Box A1 so in this way A2 lost its
identity !! hence when the above formula calculates it didnt checked for
cell C2...

I can troubleshoot by simply entering the customer name separatly into
A1 & A2 but I wouldn't prefer this cuz merged cells indicates same
order to me and you would probably agree that its nonsense to mention
the customer's name 2 times instead of mentioning 1 time for his single
order with two separate shipments...

I think i have pointed towards a serious issue.


--
irresistible007


------------------------------------------------------------------------
irresistible007's Profile: http://www.hightechtalks.com/m63
View this thread: http://www.hightechtalks.com/t2295667