"=+" Why?

Jonmo1

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• Sep 22, 2008

• #2

I think it's Old School stuff. Older apps (i don't know which, I'm just a young whippersnapper) used the + sign to begin a formula...

so you would type +5*10 or whatever, the + began the formula...

some people just got into the habbit of doing that.
Now in Excel when you do that, it still works, but adds the =

So if you type
+Now()

it converts to

=+Now()

 

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MrKowz

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• Sep 22, 2008

• #3

Good to know! Do you think that having a spreadsheet littered with these "=+" would have any detrimental effect? Or do you think I can basically ignore them.

 

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schielrn

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• Sep 22, 2008

• #4

You can basically ignore them. They should cause no harm. I believe they date back to Lotus 123 and have gotten translated that way through Excel conversion.

If you try to enter a formula with =+ it will drop the plus anyways now.

 

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Jonmo1

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• Sep 22, 2008

• #5

I can't imagine any detrimental effects. You should be able to just ignore them.

All it's really doing is saying the formula is beginning with a Positive #.

 

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mikerickson

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• Sep 22, 2008

• #6

It pre-dates Lotus. PractiCalc used that syntax. At the time, I was a C-64 user, so I'm not sure if VisiCalc used it.

 

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schielrn

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• Sep 22, 2008

• #7

Thanks for clarifying that mikerickson. I figured I shouldn't have butted in with a comment of something that I have no clue about or pre-dates me.

 

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mikerickson

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• Sep 22, 2008

• #8

Not at all.
Compatabilty with Lotus is probably the reason that Excel supports that syntax.

The history of the synatx, predates the ability to Copy from one application, Paste into a different App. And cross-application similarity was rare.

The popularity of Lotus was probably what motivated MicroSoft to support that syntax.

 

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R

riaz

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• Sep 22, 2008

• #9

schielrn said:

If you try to enter a formula with =+ it will drop the plus anyways now.

Click to expand...

If you enter =-1, it will retain both.
If you enter just -1, it will not put in an = sign for you.

I prefer to put in an = sign, just in case I need to add to the number or formula later. If you put in just 1, it will take it and treat it as a number, but if you edit it to say 1+2, it becomes text. If I input the original as =1, then editing to add +2 works, otherwise its the old F2 home = End + and then you can do your additions.

 

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P

pgc01

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• Sep 22, 2008

• #10

Hi

There's also another reason.

The keyboard layout in many languages (at least European) has the equal sign in a Shift position.

Since excel doesn't mind if you start a formula with a "+" and nature taught us to follow the path of least resistance you sometimes choose the "+" as it doesn't need the Shift key.

 

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