Simple formula question

[JD]

I have a new young employee who has been entering simple formulas by just
entering the function without any leading operand (e.g., 5/12 instead of
=5/12) and it shows the resulting calculation. Apparently this has been
working fine until he wanted to enter a decimal number (e.g., 5.2/12) and the
cell just shows the formula as if it were text. I can't find any reason for
the difference that I can explain to him (other than you are supposed to use
the = sign as the leading entry for a formula.) Does anyone have any
explanation?

 

[Mike H]

Hi,

Entering 5/12 into a cell formatted as general will be converted to a date
and as far as I'm aware there's no way around this short of a macro.


5.2/12 isn't interpreted as a date by Excel so not knowing what to do with
it it is left as text.

If your young employee; without macros, has managed to get 5/12 entered into
a cell to evaluate the same as =5/12 then I'd be very surprised.

Mike

 

[JD]

Mike:
I did it myself just to check him. The cell is formated as numeric (with 2
decimal places) and the formula switch is turned off in "Options". I can
enter 5/12 without any leading "=" or "+" symbol and the result shows in the
cell. If I enter a decimal number, it shows the formula. Try it. I can't
figure out why.
JD

 

[BillB]

if cell is formatted as "number", it will convert fractions consisting of
whole number numerator and denominator to decimal.

 

[JD]

Thanks, BillB. That answer works for me (the process only works with
division - not other math). Now I can explain it to my inquisitive employee.
JD