Zeros in blank fields when linking worksheets.

G

Guest

I am having a problem. I have a worksheet and I try to link it to another
worksheet within the same workbook. The data will copy (link) fine, but all
the cells that were "blank" now have zeros in them.

If I try to link an entire worksheet (not just specific columns) it fills
the entire linked worksheet with zeros (0) in all of the blank cells.

I have changed the cells in the original document to be "general"
attributes, but this did not help.

I am on Windows XP Pro, Excel 2002 SP3. Any ideas or solutions?
 
G

Guest

This is true even within a single worksheet. Put =A1 in cell B1 and leave A1
blank. You will see that B1 shows zero.


There is an easy fix to this. In place of:
=A1
use:
=IF(A1="","",A1)
 
G

Guest

Gary's Student: That is fine, but if we have several hundred cells that are
blank that may not be very practical, correct?

It would appear to me that this is a bug in Excel. This does NOT occur if I
copy the data from one sheet to the other.

The other problem occurs if you copy the entire worksheet and link it to
another worksheet. The all of the blank columns and rows that are blank are
filled with zeros. It also causes my PC to puke and I get an error message
that there are not enough resources. My PC has 2gb of memory.

Thank you for your input.
 
G

Guest

The real issue is even worse. Many applications need to treat blanks and
zeros in a different fashion:

For example, if you are averaging a group of cells, zero might be a valid
value, but blanks should be ignored. It is impossible to tell the difference
with a simple:

=A1

Sorry I don't have a better answer for you.
 
G

Guest

No your answer was valid, but things like this always amaze me that MS has
not addressed them. Excel is an okay product, but could be an excellent
product if some of these issues were resolved.

I was trying to find a place that I could post a question for them that
would not cost me money, but I have not found it.

Thank you for your help! Maybe this will help someone else too.
 

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