Simple formula question

  • Thread starter Thread starter JD
  • Start date Start date
J

JD

I have a new young employee who has been entering simple formulas by just
entering the function without any leading operand (e.g., 5/12 instead of
=5/12) and it shows the resulting calculation. Apparently this has been
working fine until he wanted to enter a decimal number (e.g., 5.2/12) and the
cell just shows the formula as if it were text. I can't find any reason for
the difference that I can explain to him (other than you are supposed to use
the = sign as the leading entry for a formula.) Does anyone have any
explanation?
 
Hi,

Entering 5/12 into a cell formatted as general will be converted to a date
and as far as I'm aware there's no way around this short of a macro.


5.2/12 isn't interpreted as a date by Excel so not knowing what to do with
it it is left as text.

If your young employee; without macros, has managed to get 5/12 entered into
a cell to evaluate the same as =5/12 then I'd be very surprised.

Mike
 
Mike:
I did it myself just to check him. The cell is formated as numeric (with 2
decimal places) and the formula switch is turned off in "Options". I can
enter 5/12 without any leading "=" or "+" symbol and the result shows in the
cell. If I enter a decimal number, it shows the formula. Try it. I can't
figure out why.
JD
 
if cell is formatted as "number", it will convert fractions consisting of
whole number numerator and denominator to decimal.
 
Thanks, BillB. That answer works for me (the process only works with
division - not other math). Now I can explain it to my inquisitive employee.
JD
 
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