Why do some people use Plus Sign at beginning of formulas?

perhaps a question that has relevance is better suited for this use of cyber space. :D

This is an Excel board and that was an Excel question. I have seen posts from people asking how to make a Football pool in Excel. To me that is not relevant at all. But to others it is.

I could be mistaken but I'm pretty sure it was the syntax for an older program, probably Lotus.

The "+" character is a backwards-compatible effort by Microsoft to accommodate formula entry by people who were former Lotus users, in long ago days when Lotus was the dominant spreadsheet program and MS was building their customer base.

Given the premise of the question being "why use it and why is it there", my understanding of the "+" character's genesis and existence in Excel formulas is rooted in compatibility with other programs. It's there because Microsoft was in a battle with Lotus and other programs some 15 years ago for spreadsheet marketshare dominance, and incorporated features like this for compatibility, just as REM and some BASIC statements are still supported in VBA.

Though the "+" character has a coercive effect in some formulas, one would typically not employ or be advised to rely on the preceding "+" as a general strategy for coercion before employing +0, *1, or --.

Most times when I see a formula with a preceding "+" character, it's composed by an ex-Lotus convert.

Thanks J Ericson and Tom Urtis. Those were very relevant answers to a relevant question. Glad to see others who are relevant as I am. Your answers makes a lot of sense.

Definitely a relevant question as I too arrived at this thread with the exact same question...

me too

I found the question relevant, as well, as I had the same question. Thanks for the answer.

It's also because there's no = key on the numberpad of a keyboard