LEFT function

[Elijah]

Hi ,

Just a simple problem (I hope). I have a column in an excel spreadsheet
which takes the first character of the previous column using LEFT(A1,1). Eg
A1 has "3-dice", and therefore column B is "3". The problem is that Excel
for some reason doesn't allow me to SUM column B. Its like the numbers in
column B aren't recognised as numbers. Can anyone help with a solution?

thanks in advance

Elijah

 

[JON-JON]

=VALUE(LEFT(A1,1)

 

[J.E. McGimpsey]

The reason the numbers aren't recognized as numbers is that LEFT()
returns a text string. Text is ignored in SUM(). You can coerce the
value to a number using the Value() function, as suggested by
JON-JON. The text will also be coerced in a math operation, e.g.:

=B1 + 0