Conditional formula yeilds non-number result

[RichM]

Hello,

I made conditional formulas but with the numbers that result I am unable to
calculate their average. I get the #DIV/0! error. They are formatted as
"General" but even when I format them as numbers they cannot be averaged. I
have to copy them and "paste special" them as values, then there is an error
message that pops up (the little green triangle in the upper left of the cell
that I click on) where I can convert them to numbers.

Is there a way to make them numbers when they are the result of conditional
formulas without going through all those steps?

Thank you.

 

[Lars-Åke Aspelin]

Hello,

I made conditional formulas but with the numbers that result I am unable to
calculate their average. I get the #DIV/0! error. They are formatted as
"General" but even when I format them as numbers they cannot be averaged. I
have to copy them and "paste special" them as values, then there is an error
message that pops up (the little green triangle in the upper left of the cell
that I click on) where I can convert them to numbers.

Is there a way to make them numbers when they are the result of conditional
formulas without going through all those steps?

Thank you.

Post an example of your "conditional formula".

Lars-Åke

 

[RichM]

=IF(O3=1,"7",IF(O3=2,"6",IF(O3=3,"5",IF(O3=4,"4",IF(O3=5,"3",IF(O3=6,"2",IF(O3=7,"1")))))))

This works and I have a column of them but when I try to average the column
it doesn't work.

Thank you

 

[Roger Govier]

Hi Rich

Remove the " " around each of your numbers.
You are forcing them to be Text and not Numeric

 

[RichM]

Thanks Roger. That worked. So is it true that when you have quotes around a
number it is formatted as text even if a number appears as the product of the
condition?

Thanks again.

 

[Roger Govier]

Hi Rich
Yes it is.
At it's simplest
=IF(O3=1,7,"")
If there is a 1 in cell O3, then there will be a 7 in the cell with the
formula, otherwise "" a null value
Or
=IF(O3=1,7,0) would put a 0 rather than null if the condition is False.

If Cell O3 contained something like 1BCD, and you had a formula to
extract the 1 like
=LEFT(O3,1)
that again would return 1 as a text value , as you are using a Text
function.
You can force it to return a Numeric result by using either
=VALUE(LEFT(O3,1)) or
=--LEFT(O3,1)
where the double unary minus -- coerces the value from Text to Numeric.

 

[Teethless mama]

=IF(O3=1,"7",IF(O3=2,"6",IF(O3=3,"5",IF(O3=4,"4",IF(O3=5,"3",IF(O3=6,"2",IF(O3=7,"1")))))))

Remove double quotes around the numbers.

Or you can try this elegant solution.

=8-O3