I get a 0 value when a formula is copied to another cell

[arleen a.]

A1=1; B1=1; C1=A1+B1=2; when the formula in C1 was copied to C2 where A2=2;
B2=2; the value is shown as 0. HOwever, when i checked the formula in C2, it
was correct (A2+B2). Why is this so? I checked the "calculation" under the
optiions, automatic was ticked. I also pressed F9 for recalc, the value in
C2 remained at 0. Can someody enlighten me on this? thanks

 

[Ken Russell]

If you mistakenly typed -2 in either A2 or B2 then C2 would equal 0 instead
of 4.

--
Ken Russell

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[arleen a.]

Hi Ken..thanks but i did not. the example is showed earlier is a simplistic
way of showing the problem. Actually, the reference cells (A2 and B2) are
totals of various figures or numbers...

arleen a.

 

[paul]

is it possible that the actual sum of the two cells is zero?

 

[Jerry W. Lewis]

If you had used =SUM(A1:B1) instead of =A1+B1, then I would assume that the
values in A2:B2 were text instead of numeric, which could be verified by
testing that =COUNT(A2:B2) returns zero. Given that the formula is =A1+B1,
text digits would be coerced into numbers, or non-coercible text would
produce an error. One of the following must be true

- Something is not as I understand you to have described (post an e-mail
address and I will write you privatly for a copy of the workbook)

- You have an early version of Excel 97, that has not fixed the recalc bug
that was addressed with later service patches.

- You have run accross a basic arithmetic bug that is completely outside my
experience with Excel (I strongly doubt this possibility)

Jerry