Calculate with or without Symbol

[Guest]

I posted the following message on the board a few days ago:

Using Excel 2003
I have a cell (B3) that has a value of >0.30%. Then I have another cell
(B5) that has a value of 0.35%. I want to know the difference between the
two values, which is 0.05%. I cannot just use the formula =B5-B3 because of
the greater than symbol in B3. I was thinking of using a different cell
(let's say C3) and then create a formula for that cell to extract the >
symbol and then use that cell for my difference and then hide that column.
What would be the formula to hide the > symbol?

Paul (PVLIVE) suggested I use the following formula:
=B5-RIGHT(B3,LEN(B3)-1)
It works great, but I just noticed that there are some cells that do not
have the > or < symbol. How can the formula be modified so it calculates
with or without the symbol?

Thank you ALL

 

[David Biddulph]

You could try
=B5-IF(ISNUMBER(B3),B3,RIGHT(B3,LEN(B3)-1))