Speeding up Entry by Auto-Inserting Equals Sign for Sums

[apophaticmystic]

Greetings wise one,

I am trying to make it easier for the users of my spreadsheet to add numeric values into a row of 30 cells. Sometimes they put in a single value (such as 17.29), other times they put in the sum of two values, (such as 17+29). Like most primates these users are intent upon saving calories and would rather not have to enter "=" in front of cells. Especially if they entered in the 17 first, and realized a day or two later they also need to enter in the 29. This means they will need to move to the front and add the "=" manually = .

Is there a way to make this faster?

I already tried:

• Having a default "=0" in each cell, this is better but means they have to backspace the "0" each time they want to enter something.
• Having just "=" in each cell. However since I have various mathematical operations that occur on the sum of each of these rows (such as addition and subtraction), this returns a reprehensible "#Value" error. I'm sure there is a very long formula that could do an if/then processing on each of the 30 cells in each row, but it doesn't seem intuitive.

Your advice is appreciated.

Sincerely,

Verbose Noob

 

[admiral100]

Hi,

So if there is a sign "+" you need to sum the numbers ?

 

[apophaticmystic]

Not quite, but that is how the numbers are summed in each cell, it's only necessary if there is more than one.

 

[admiral100]

So you can create new name range with all signs that you need .
Let's say from A1 to A5 enter "+" , "." , "-" , "*", ":" etc'

Name the rang as signs and write the formula : Ctrl+Shfit+Enter not just Enter

=SUM(IFERROR(LEFT(B2,FIND(signs,B2)-1)+RIGHT(B2,(LEN(B2)-FIND(signs,B2))),0))