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Cells not summing properly
Sometimes when I download excel table from Real Page financial software, the excel file will not allow me to highlight the cells and sum the numbers in them in the bottom right bar of excel. I only am getting a count of the rows selected. How do I resolve this?
That probably means that Excel sees the values as text instead of as numbers.
Try the following:
- Select such values in a single column.
- Make sure that the number format is set to General or Number.
- On the Data tab of the ribbon. click Text to Columns.
- Without changing any settings, click Finish.
Can you sum the values now?
6 Replies
That probably means that Excel sees the values as text instead of as numbers.
Try the following:
- Select such values in a single column.
- Make sure that the number format is set to General or Number.
- On the Data tab of the ribbon. click Text to Columns.
- Without changing any settings, click Finish.
Can you sum the values now?
This did work - but do you know why these steps became necessary? I can't figure out why it suddenly just stopped auto summing correctly. I updated excel, I restarted it. I just can't figure out why these extra steps became necessary. Thoughts? Thanks
It depends on how the source data are formatted. Sometimes Excel interprets values as text if they come from another application or from the web.
- That worked. I also noticed that if I go into an individual cell and place cursor in front of the first digit and select backspace, it would work but your option will save me a lot of time! Thank you!!!
- This didn't work for me. The SUM app produced a result of 0 for my column of numbers, when I defined them as numbers, currency, general or text. It did not produce an error message. The result was always 0, zero.
What DID work was what my wife suggested: just delete the file and start over with a new workbook sheet. SUM worked fine on the new sheet with new data. Somehow my copy-paste from a CVS file generated by my mutual fund produced data that Excel wouldn't process.
