sorting problem in excel 2000

[inenewbl]

Hi all. When i try to sort a particular column in excel i was prompted the
following
"Microsoft excel cannot calculate a formula. Cell references in the formula
refer to the formula’s result, creating a circular reference". I have other
excel documents with the same type of data as the problematic column but did
not face such problem. How can i solve this? Thks in advance.

 

[David McRitchie]

Kind of hard to answer not knowing what the formulas are but i expect
that you are referencing cell that are not on the same row, and might
be able to solve your problem with OFFSET if it is anything like
resembling a checking account.
.http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/insrtrow.htm
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/offset.htm
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/sorting.htm

When sorting you usually want to select all cells on the worksheet
Ctrl+A (or on Excel 2000 Shift+space) Before sorting so that
the entire row travels with the data being sorted on the same row.
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/shortx2k.htm

Do you know what a circular reference is. it is when a cell value
is dependent upon itself. A few people can work with that .
It certainly doesn't help Excel work better. the status bar
will usually show you where the circular reference is but in your
case evidently the sort recognizes a problem an stops.



HTH,
David McRitchie, Microsoft MVP - Excel [site changed Nov. 2001]
My Excel Pages: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/excel.htm
Search Page: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/search.htm