AVERAGE function

  • Thread starter Thread starter Andy Brown
  • Start date Start date
A

Andy Brown

Excel 2K Help gives this example ; A1:A5 = 10,7,9,27,2 respectively, then

=AVERAGE(A1:A5, 5)

returns 10 (which it does). But it doesn't give any clue what the
significance of ", 5" is.

1. What's it all about?

2. Who writes these crappy Help files?

TIA,
Andy
 
Hi Andy

unless my calculator's playing up 10+7+9+27+2 = 55 so the average of these
numbers would be 55/5 which = 11

the extra "5" is another range included in the range to be averaged so
55+5 = 60/6 =10
i guess they're trying to show you that you can have up to 30 ranges as
parameters for averaging and these ranges can be either cell references or
values.

BTW if you think the 2000 help files are bad wait until you get excel 2002 /
2003 - apologies to anyone on this board who had anything to do with these
help files :)

Cheers
JulieD
 
the extra "5" is another range

Well that's an incredibly stupid example, quite probably designed
specifically to trip up incredibly stupid people who automatically go "what
the heck is this mysterious extra arg?".

Thanks JulieD. <blush>
 
nah, its to confuse people who think that they can "go it alone" by just
reading the help files :)

the one that sticks out in my mind was the help on the transpose function -
could not get it to work ... read help / tried the example / pulled hair out
.... etc ... eventually posted on here and some kind soul explained that it
was an "array" function and therefore had to be entered with Control/Shift &
Enter - now don't you think that HELP should have explained this?!? ... okay
it does say it is an array function but back in those days that meant
absolutely nothing to me (now-a-days it means v.slightly more).

onwards & upwards ..

Cheers
JulieD
 
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