Simple Tricks with your curly brackets not working

[rplim2016]

Hi Mr. Excel users,

Good day!

2 samples below (BOTH WORKING)
-Original: =OR(WEEKDAY(A10)=1,WEEKDAY(A10)=7)
-Curly =OR(WEEKDAY(A10)={1,7})
I'm using Curly because of lesser LEN.

Curly #2 not working
-Original: =OR(B10="richard",B10="phoebe")
-Curly #1: =OR(B10={"richard","phoebe"})
-Curly #2=OR(B10={X1,X2})

Original and Curly #1 is both working, but to prevent hard coding. I prefer to reference cells range inside the Curly but, it's not working, is there a way for excel to read the Curly #2 above?

#1 My point of asking this question is to make the formula shorter and easy to read, specifically this is for OR and AND.
#2 Any tricks with curly brackets aside from CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER would be helpful.

Hope I make sense for asking this question. Have a great day!

 

[PaddyD]

Hi.

Review the excel help file entry for "Guidelines and examples of array formulas', and scroll down to the 'Learn about array constants' section. You'll find the following:

[h=1]"Array constants can't contain additional arrays, formulas, or functions. In other words, they can contain only text or numbers that are separated by commas or semicolons. Excel displays a warning message when you enter a formula such as {1,2,A1:D4} or {1,2,SUM(Q2:Z8)}. Also, numeric values can't contain percent signs, dollar signs, commas, or parentheses."[/h]You'll need to do the or() longhand:

=or(b1=x1,b1=x2)

 

[rplim2016]

Hi.

Review the excel help file entry for "Guidelines and examples of array formulas', and scroll down to the 'Learn about array constants' section. You'll find the following:

"Array constants can't contain additional arrays, formulas, or functions. In other words, they can contain only text or numbers that are separated by commas or semicolons. Excel displays a warning message when you enter a formula such as {1,2,A1:D4} or {1,2,SUM(Q2:Z8)}. Also, numeric values can't contain percent signs, dollar signs, commas, or parentheses."

You'll need to do the or() longhand:

=or(b1=x1,b1=x2)

Thank you, will read the thread you gave.

 

[Marcelo Branco]

If you have many names, instead of
=OR(B10="richard",B10="phoebe",B10="bob",B10="mary",B10=...,B10=...)

you can try something like
=ISNUMBER(MATCH(B10,MyList,0))
where MyList is a named range containing the names.

M.

 

[Tetra201]

... I prefer to reference cells range inside the Curly but, it's not working, is there a way for excel to read the Curly #2 above?..

There is (with Ctrl+Shift+Enter):

=OR(B10=CHOOSE({1,2},X1,X2))

However, =OR(B10=X1,B10=X2) is shorter.