Cell subtraction

[Guest]

In E17 I placed =If(isblank(A17),"===",B17-C17)
In A17 I have the date 4/4/05
In B17 is the negative number -30.33
In C17 is the number 0.00

In E17 I get 30.33 instead of -30.33
How can I fix this to get -30.33 in E17

Also if A17 is blank/empty and B17 is empty and C17 is 500
then I get #VALUE! in E17 instead of ===

(e-mail address removed)

 

[Ragdyer]

Your formula works correctly when values are keyed into A17 and B17 and C17.

What formulas do you have in those cells?

 

[Pete_UK]

Perhaps the cells B17 and /or C17 are formatted as text - Format |
Cells | Number (tab) | General on both, then edit the contents of each
cell (or press F2).

Hope this helps.

Pete

 

[David McRitchie]

Check the formatting in cell E17
Format, Cells,
write down what you see, then select Custom and write down what you see
change the format to General

if you something in cell A17 and a text entry in B17 you would get a #VALUE! error
try this
F17: =ISNUMBER(B17)
G17: =ISNUMBER(C17)
if they are not numbers you might want to read the write-up at
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/join.htm#trimall