Hi all,

I'm trying to generate the average time for a number of finishers in a
sailing race. There may be certain boats that have text values in place of a
finish time for did not finish, did not start or did not compete.

Q1 - The spreadsheet I inherited used SUM() to give the sum of the finish
times, COUNTIF(value 0) of the count of the number of finishers, finally to
arrive at average = SUM / COUNTIF. This gives errors as SUM() does not give
the correct value when the text values are present - are there functions
available to give the sum of the race times for the finishers (this figure
also used for other stats)?

Q2 - Does the AVERAGE() function ignore text when calculating the average?

Cheers!
Mark (Skiffie)

"Skiffie" wrote in message
...

Q1 - The spreadsheet I inherited used SUM() to give the sum of the finish
times, COUNTIF(value 0) of the count of the number of finishers, finally
to
arrive at average = SUM / COUNTIF. This gives errors as SUM() does not
give
the correct value when the text values are present - are there functions
available to give the sum of the race times for the finishers (this figure
also used for other stats)?

That shouldn't matter, SUM will ignore text.

Q2 - Does the AVERAGE() function ignore text when calculating the average?

Yes.

"Bob Phillips" wrote:


"Skiffie" wrote in message
...

Q1 - The spreadsheet I inherited used SUM() to give the sum of the finish
times, COUNTIF(value 0) of the count of the number of finishers, finally
to
arrive at average = SUM / COUNTIF. This gives errors as SUM() does not
give
the correct value when the text values are present - are there functions
available to give the sum of the race times for the finishers (this figure
also used for other stats)?

That shouldn't matter, SUM will ignore text.


Thanks Bob - made me re-check the formula again and I found my range was
wrong. :blush:

We've all been there <g

Bob

"Skiffie" wrote in message
...


"Bob Phillips" wrote:


"Skiffie" wrote in message
...

Q1 - The spreadsheet I inherited used SUM() to give the sum of the
finish
times, COUNTIF(value 0) of the count of the number of finishers,
finally
to
arrive at average = SUM / COUNTIF. This gives errors as SUM() does
not
give
the correct value when the text values are present - are there
functions
available to give the sum of the race times for the finishers (this
figure
also used for other stats)?

That shouldn't matter, SUM will ignore text.


Thanks Bob - made me re-check the formula again and I found my range was
wrong. :blush: