=+SUM
I've always considered this to be lazy programming on the part of the
Excel developers. When you enter something into a cell and press
<enter Excel then needs to make sense of what you have typed. All
formulae in Excel begin with =, which makes it easy to distinguish a
formula from other types of entry. Earlier spreadsheets did not follow
this convention, however, so you could type a formula with a leading
arithmetic operator (like +), or with an @ symbol to denote a
function. You can still use these within Excel, but Excel will put an
= in front of what you have typed. The leading + is redundant, but
Excel does not remove it, although when you type a formula like:
@left(a1,2)
Excel will convert this to:
=LEFT(A1,2)
so it is capable of removing some of your text (and of changing
function names and cell references to upper case, etc). The + is a
hangover from earlier times and can be ignored (and Excel should get
rid of it).
Pete
On Feb 18, 12:31*am, FJ wrote:
Hi, I have a question: *I was given a spreadsheet to work on and all the SUM
formulas have the following format: *=+SUM(A1:A10). *I have never seen this
before. *Does the + sign before SUM mean anything and if so, what? *It
doesn’t seem to make a difference when it is removed. *Sorry if this is a
really basic question. *I have just never seen this before and I am curious.
Thanks in advance for any information.
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