prob. keeping # on right side of cell

[kevin]

Pardon the duplicate posting in "formulas discussion
group" I just Discovered this "MacIntosh" discussion
heading....

My office PC was replaced with a Mac. I do not
understand why many numbers I enter post to the left side
of the cell while others post on the right. The Mac Excel
program is clearly behaving in a different manner than my
home PC Excel program.

With the Mac, I can enter a "2" and it posts on the right
of
the cell. I then post a "22" and it posts to the left.
When I sum the colum, all the numbers on the left seem to
be subtracting instead of adding. In some cases, when I
attempt to use "SUM" formula, it returns a zero, even
though the exact same command on my PC provides an
accurate sum of the column. I am an Excel beginner
but I can use the PC program without problems while the
Mac seems to be building in its own commands or defaults.

Any ideas as to the cause?

 

[J.E. McGimpsey]

Pardon the duplicate posting in "formulas discussion
group" I just Discovered this "MacIntosh" discussion
heading....

My office PC was replaced with a Mac. I do not
understand why many numbers I enter post to the left side
of the cell while others post on the right. The Mac Excel
program is clearly behaving in a different manner than my
home PC Excel program.

With the Mac, I can enter a "2" and it posts on the right
of
the cell. I then post a "22" and it posts to the left.
When I sum the colum, all the numbers on the left seem to
be subtracting instead of adding. In some cases, when I
attempt to use "SUM" formula, it returns a zero, even
though the exact same command on my PC provides an
accurate sum of the column. I am an Excel beginner
but I can use the PC program without problems while the
Mac seems to be building in its own commands or defaults.

Any ideas as to the cause?

Sounds like you've got (some) of your numbers entered as text - this
happens frequently if you're pasting from another application (which
may explain the difference between behavior on the PC and the Mac).
It also happens if your cells are preformatted as Text.

First, reformat your cells as General or another number format. This
won't convert numbers entered as Text, though. To do that, select an
empty cell. Copy it. Select your numbers. Choose Edit/Paste Special,
selecting the Value and Add radio buttons.

That will coerce any "text" numbers to real numbers.