Why do people use =+A2 or =+d3? What does the "+" reference?

[Chris 21222222]

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

 

[David Biddulph]

The + does nothing in those cases. It means that whoever wrote the formula
has forgotten that they're using Excel, rather than an earlier Lotus
spreadsheet package.

 

[Don Guillett]

Throwback to Lotus 123 and completely UN necessary.

 

[FSt1]

hi
the plus sign is from lotus and is not necessary in excel.
in lotus, if you put 2+2 in a cell, lotus does the math and displays 4. in
excel you must preceed all math computation with the = sign.
and in lotus when using cell references like A2, lotus does not do the math
unless you preceed the references with a plus sign ie +A1+A2. it a sign to
lotus to do math.
some people who have migrated over to excel sometimes still use the + sign
in thier formulas. it doesn't hurt but in excel it's not necessary. so if you
wish you can remove the plus signs with not harm done.

regards
FSt1

 

[JoeU2004]

Subject: Why do people use =+A2 or =+d3? What does the "+" reference?

(Why do people put their question only in the Subject line instead of [also]
the body of the message? ;->)

Anyone who enters =+A3 manually is probably emulating Excel, thinking it is
required.

The real question is: why does Excel convert formulas of the form +A1+B1 to
=+A1+B1 instead of simply =A1+B1?

As others have noted, the "+formula" syntax comes from Lotus 123, another
spreadsheet application.

But past discussions of this, someone has also pointed out that that
notation is useful, even in Excel, when using a numeric keypad to enter
numeric-only formulas. The numeric keypad has "+", but typically not "=".

In any case, when Excel changes the "+formula", there is no reason for it to
retain the "+". It could simply substitute an "=" for "+".