Add Comments to a Formula
May 11, 2022 - by Bill Jelen
![Add Comments to a Formula Add Comments to a Formula](/img/excel-tips/2022/05/add-comments-to-a-formula.jpg)
Problem: I spent a great deal of time perfecting the formula shown below. I would like to leave myself notes about it so I can figure it out again six months from now.
![A formula shown previously, using RANK+COUNTIF.](/img/content/2022/05/LE10000480.jpg)
Strategy: An old Lotus 1-2-3 function—the N
function—is still available in Excel. It turns out that N
of a number is the number and N
of any text is zero. Thus, you can add several N
functions to a formula without changing the result, provided that they contain text.
If you have figured out some obscure formula, you can leave yourself notes about it right in the formula.
![The formula from the previous figure with three comments. The comments use =N("this is a comment") style comments. The N of text is zero, so adding zero does not change the answer in the cell.](/img/content/2022/05/LE10000481.jpg)
This article is an excerpt from Power Excel With MrExcel
Title photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash