Excel . (dots) in formula not automatically changes to : when selecting multiple adjacent cells

Copper Contributor

Hello,

 

Earlier: Eg. Sum A1:A10 in cell B10

  1. Go to cell B10 and type =sum(,
  2. using arrow key go to a1 or a10,
  3. type .
  4. using arrow key select the full range and press enter

Now:

typing . as in step 3 above, and the trying to select the range does not work.  The formula after hitting enter key shows =SUM(A10.a1) and returns a #FIELD! error.

 

Please help

 

Regards,

Siddhartha

5 Replies

@Siddhartha10 

Yes, dot in a range with SUM doesn't work any more. It was discussed some ago here.

@Siddhartha10

 

It was really a nice trick!

We've discussed this issue before in this link.

Bottom line: this feature is broken or overwritten in recent Office 365 updates due to the new Excel data types (Stocks and geography) that came with the new error type #FIELD!

Expand Range Using Period.gif

@Haytham Amairah

Thanks for thinking this to be a trick. As already mentioned by @Jaydee2325 in the link mentioned by you its an old Lotus123 command.

However, I thank @PRAY00 for raising this with the Excel Team as this was a very nice "trick" to be fast in excel.

Regards,

Siddhartha

@Siddhartha10 

We shall be ready to what some undocumented feature will be broken one day. This one is not the only which eventually stops to work.