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BobM_48's avatar
BobM_48
Copper Contributor
Dec 15, 2018

Cell Range Delimiter

I used to be able to use a period to specify a cell range in a formula, e.g. -- =sum(a1.a5).

This formula now gives a #FIELD! error. It seems that Excel will only accept a colon (:) now to separate the limits of a range.

 

Is this an intentional change or am I missing something?

 

Thanks,

Bob

excel

3 Replies

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  • PRAY00's avatar
    PRAY00
    Copper Contributor
    Mar 26, 2019

    BobM_48 This was broken with the release of the "Stocks and Geographies" feature which reworked how that dot operator is used.  I think right now that feature is only part of Excel 2016 for Office 365.

    I've actually been in contact with Microsoft about this and they've added it to their backlog to address, so this will hopefully be resolved at some point in the future.

  • Haytham Amairah's avatar
    Haytham Amairah
    Silver Contributor
    Dec 16, 2018

    Hi Bob,

    I never knew about this trick before, but it's a really cool trick!

    I am using Excel 2019, and I can use it.

    You can select the starting cell, then type the period (.) to allow you to expand the range using just one arrow!

    And after entering the formula, the period (.) becomes colon (:).

     

     

    It seems that this feature has been broken or overwritten in Excel 365 because of the new data types in Excel (Stocks and geography) which comes with the new error type #FIELD!.

     

    I think we need some clarification from the Excel team.
    John Campbell
    JoeMcDaid
     
    • Jaydee2325's avatar
      Jaydee2325
      Copper Contributor
      Mar 13, 2019
      As a very old Lotus 123 user, I suspect that this was part of the Lotus compatibility.

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