Why put + at the start of a formula?

[CliveInTokyo]

Greetings all,

This is my first post.

I am working on someone elses spreadsheet, and they have a formula similar to this:

=+k6+k12

Experimentation has failed to reveal the purpose of the + at the beginning of the formula, and it doesn't seem to be related to changing the sign of the number.

Can anyone enlighten me as to the purpose of this +?

 

[Smitty]

Welcome to the Board!

The + is a throwback to Lotus 1-2-3. It's not necessary in Excel, but Excel will recognize it.

In Excel start a formula with =, or @ (another throwback to Lotus, but Excel will convert it to =).

Hope that helps,

Smitty

 

[plettieri]

Hi:

Welcome to the board!!

I don't the techical answer, but it seems to denote whether the first numer (in your example) is treated as positive or negative in formula.

plettieri

 

[CliveInTokyo]

Thanks chaps

 

[Todd Bardoni]

Smitty is correct. It's a throw back to Lotus. + denotes the beginning of a formula.

 

[Smitty]

As a side note, in Lotus you could simply enter +1+2 and get 3. It kept 10-key entering simpler.

You can do that in Excel if you goto Tools-->Options-->Transition and check the Transition options.

It's helpful if you have a workbook that requires a lot of flat-out data entry. (Although I never use it, some of our accounting folks do to total cash receipts, etc.)

Smitty

 

[Todd Bardoni]

As a side note, in Lotus you could simply enter +1+2 and get 3. It kept 10-key entering simpler.

You can do that in Excel if you goto Tools-->Options-->Transition and check the Transition options.

It's helpful if you have a workbook that requires a lot of flat-out data entry. (Although I never use it, some of our accounting folks do to total cash receipts, etc.)

Smitty

Heya, Smitty. I don't believe you need to turn on Transition options to do:- +1+2 and get 3. I'm pretty sure Excel recognizes this. Maybe I'm misunderstanding.

 

[Tom Urtis]

A bit more background:

The leading "+" is for compatibility with Lotus, which does nothing good or bad to Excel formulas, except that it looks odd. Lotus formulas began with "+", "-", or "@". If the formula has a "-" sign in front of it then that would be significant, but a "+" sign for Excel means nothing significant, in your case sort of like saying =0+k6+k12 . As you can see, since the leading "+" does nothing and means nothing, it can be deleted.

 

[erik.van.geit]

Practical approach:
type +1+2 in a cell and you'll see how Excel changes it to =1+2
that's how it behaves on my machine

kind regards,
Erik

 

[inarbeth]

Smitty is correct. It's a throw back to Lotus. + denotes the beginning of a formula.

Todd, what do you mean "Death to the apostrophe!"? You've used one - and correctly too!