Using + in formulas - why?

[kylesin]

Some individuals at my office use a + in front of cells when they ar
putting calculations within a cell. E.g. =+a1-b2 versus =a1+b2. First
why do they do this?

Second, in a recent spreadsheet, I came across the formul
=AVERAGE(+X:Y). The result of this formula gave me the average of onl
the first cell within the range (i.e. +X... the result of the cell wa
simply X). Second, why is this?

Basically, what does the + do in the front of formulas and what benefi
does it provide?

I tried to search Excel help and even tried to find the answer i
Google to now avail.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Anne Troy]

They take up space. I think it's a carryover from using Lotus 123 and
perhaps even from those files having been converted at some point. I have
done find/replace and found =+ and replace with =.
************
Anne Troy
www.OfficeArticles.com

 

[Sandy Mann]

=AVERAGE(+X:Y). The result of this formula gave me the average of only

the first cell within the range (i.e. +X... the result of the cell was
simply X). Second, why is this?

Could it be that your formula was in the same row as the first cell? In
XL97 I get whatever number of the range is in the same row as the formula or
#VALUE! if it is in a different row altogether.

SUM and MAX behave the same way and COUNTA returns 1 in any position but
COUNT returns 0 if not lined up with any range number and 1 if within the
same row numbers.

=SUM(--(ISNUMBER(+J10:J18))) returns 0 in any position even although
highlighting --(ISNUMBER(+J10:J18)) and pressing F9 gives
{1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1;1}and =SUM({1;1}) directly entered returns 2 as expected.

=SUM(--(ISNUMBER(+J10:J18))) array entered returns 9

=SUMPRODUCT(+J10:J18) returns the correct total, presumably because it is
designed to work on an array

=SUBTOTAL(9,J10:J18) can't be entered because it "contains an error"

mmmmm......... Must be a Microsoft *feature* <g>

--
Regards


Sandy
(e-mail address removed)
Replace@mailinator with @tiscali.co.uk