Help with SUM function

Posted by Kevin on January 30, 2002 11:20 AM

Have a situation I have not encountered before. What would cause the =sum(a1:a3) function to return zero, but if you use =a1+a2+a3it computes correctly?

thanks in advance

Posted by Juan Pablo G. on January 30, 2002 11:21 AM

They must be Text. Try =ISTEXT(A1) or A2 or A3, to see if they are.

Juan Pablo G.

Posted by Mark W. on January 30, 2002 11:22 AM

The contents of A1, A2 and A3 are text representation
of numbers (e.g., "10").

Posted by Kevin on January 30, 2002 11:43 AM

thanks, using the istext function verified that the cells are text representation. Can these be changed and how?

thanks again

Posted by Aladin Akyurek on January 30, 2002 12:31 PM

Giving a hand to Juan...

Insert a column next to the culprit. Apply Data|Text to Columns to it.

and this you might like to read:

(broken link)

Aladin

Posted by Juan Pablo G. on January 30, 2002 1:00 PM

Did you know that Excel XP offers now a error check ? puts a little green square when it finds a text number... they could use it very much !

Oh, and nice explanation...

Juan Pablo G.