Forum Discussion
Simple Excel question
Writing some formulas, and when trying to square whole numbers (ex 4x4), Excel provides wrong answer (14.21).
I have tried as (A1)^2, (A1) x (A1) and both come back with the wrong answer (14.21).
Any help is appreciated!
4 Replies
If cell A1 contains decimals, then you can also try the function =MROUND(A1,1). This will help to get the nearest round number.
Example: A1 = 3.77
B1 = =MROUND(A1,1)
C1= =B1*B1
Answer = 16.
The starting point is that, when Excel shows the result to be 14.21, that is the correct result to the problem as posed. It is far more likely that you have formulated the wrong problem than it is that the Excel calculation engine has given the wrong answer.
As HansVogelaar suggests, the value contained in cell A1 will be closer to 3.77 than it is to 4. The fact that you see 4 in cell A1 is due to the formatting. It affects the presentation but not the value of the underlying number.
Format A1 as General, or as Number with 4 decimal places.
Do you see 4 or something like 3.7696?
I tried your examples and Excel gave me an error and converted =(A1)x(A1) to =(A1)*(A1) Where A1 was General format and contained the number 4. The function answer was 16 and was also General format. Using the number format you can set the number of decimal points to 0 for whole numbers.
Cheers,
Clark
