I recently installed my Office 2003 on my second laptop. Having read many of
your usual responses I know this is allowed and it worker.
I just set up an Excell file, entered some data, and planned to sum a column
in the usual way with eithr the sum formula which I can use or the Sum
button, Al I got was a repeat of the formula. From the dark recesses of my
mind I recall I couldn't make such a sum in the long, long ago from my old,
old desktop PC until I happened on a reference to "add-ins."
Recalling that installling add-ins was a sovereign remedy for the similar
situation in the past, I looked under Tools, Options, Add-ins, checked off
the summing item and pushed the top button. The second time I did this a
message came up, saying this was being installed. I was joyful as I thought
the problem solved, but sadly I still only get the formula in the cell where
I expect a sum. Some book (on Office '75) suggested that I reinstall the
Office program being careful to only install the add-ins portion. Is this
rther heroic(to me) effort necessary? Please advise and thanks, Ajimmo
Thanks, Ajimmo

Some common problems when you see the formula--and not the results of the
formula.

#1. The cell is formatted as Text.
Reformat the cell as General (format|Cells|number tab)
And reenter the formula.

#2. You're looking at formulas.
Tools|Options|View Tab|uncheck Formulas

#3. You didn't start with an equal sign:
=sum(a1:a10)
(make sure you don't have any leading spaces, too.)

ajimmo wrote:

I recently installed my Office 2003 on my second laptop. Having read many of
your usual responses I know this is allowed and it worker.
I just set up an Excell file, entered some data, and planned to sum a column
in the usual way with eithr the sum formula which I can use or the Sum
button, Al I got was a repeat of the formula. From the dark recesses of my
mind I recall I couldn't make such a sum in the long, long ago from my old,
old desktop PC until I happened on a reference to "add-ins."
Recalling that installling add-ins was a sovereign remedy for the similar
situation in the past, I looked under Tools, Options, Add-ins, checked off
the summing item and pushed the top button. The second time I did this a
message came up, saying this was being installed. I was joyful as I thought
the problem solved, but sadly I still only get the formula in the cell where
I expect a sum. Some book (on Office '75) suggested that I reinstall the
Office program being careful to only install the add-ins portion. Is this
rther heroic(to me) effort necessary? Please advise and thanks, Ajimmo
Thanks, Ajimmo

--

Dave Peterson

Could be that ToolsOptionsCalculation is set for Manual and not Automatic.

If you see just the formulas and not results, could bee that you have View
Formulas set in ToolsOptionsView.

Could also be that the cells were pre-formatted as Text.

Re-format to General then F2 and ENTER to re-enter the formulas.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

On Mon, 2 Oct 2006 15:05:02 -0700, ajimmo
wrote:

I recently installed my Office 2003 on my second laptop. Having read many of
your usual responses I know this is allowed and it worker.
I just set up an Excell file, entered some data, and planned to sum a column
in the usual way with eithr the sum formula which I can use or the Sum
button, Al I got was a repeat of the formula. From the dark recesses of my
mind I recall I couldn't make such a sum in the long, long ago from my old,
old desktop PC until I happened on a reference to "add-ins."
Recalling that installling add-ins was a sovereign remedy for the similar
situation in the past, I looked under Tools, Options, Add-ins, checked off
the summing item and pushed the top button. The second time I did this a
message came up, saying this was being installed. I was joyful as I thought
the problem solved, but sadly I still only get the formula in the cell where
I expect a sum. Some book (on Office '75) suggested that I reinstall the
Office program being careful to only install the add-ins portion. Is this
rther heroic(to me) effort necessary? Please advise and thanks, Ajimmo
Thanks, Ajimmo