Using ABS

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

How can I use the ABS (absolute) function to return an absolute value for a
ranage of numbers that are both negative and positive?
 
I presume that you are wanting a more involved answer than =ABS(A1), but
your question is not detailed enough for me to know what you really want.

Jerry
 
Well, first of all, you can only use it nested within another function that
will take that range and return a single value (like SUM()) because you can't
return an array into a single cell in Excel. Assuming that is what you want
to do, nest the ABS() function and commit it by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER.
For example:

=SUM(ABS(A1:A50)) (entered with CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER) will sum the absolute
values of A1 to A50.
 
You can select a column of 50 cells and array enter =ABS(A1:A50) to
simultaneously populate the entire selection, but it is not clear what
advantage that would have over a cell at a time.

Jerry
 
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