I have seen discussions about SUM problems here. Do not understand much, advices about footer rows just confuse me.
I have 268334,23 in C3 and want to subtract G2 which contains 265000. Should be fairly straightforward. The result according to numbers is 333423,00. If I enter manually C3-265000, I get the same result.
Excel calculates without a problem.
HI Frans,
It appears that Numbers is not recognizing the comma ( , ) as a decimal separator.
Using a period as the decimal separator, and =C3-G2 as the formula doing the subtraction, I get 3334.23 as the result.
Replacing the period with a comma, the contents of C3 immediately move to the left of the cell (indicating Numbers now thinks the contents are text, not a number), and the formula above throws an error message: The operator "-" expects a number, date or duration, but cell C3 contains a string.
The decimal separator is a System Preferences setting in the Language and Text > Regions preference s pane. The problem may be there.
Regards,
Barry
HI Frans,
It appears that Numbers is not recognizing the comma ( , ) as a decimal separator.
Using a period as the decimal separator, and =C3-G2 as the formula doing the subtraction, I get 3334.23 as the result.
Replacing the period with a comma, the contents of C3 immediately move to the left of the cell (indicating Numbers now thinks the contents are text, not a number), and the formula above throws an error message: The operator "-" expects a number, date or duration, but cell C3 contains a string.
The decimal separator is a System Preferences setting in the Language and Text > Regions preference s pane. The problem may be there.
Regards,
Barry
Thanks Barry,
I should have mentioned that my system is german, so the comma is fine for decimal.
By accident I found, that the content of the cell was given in %. No idea why. After changing the format to currency everything is fine.
Hi Frans,
That's a surprise—here (Canada) Numbers includes the % sign in cells where the displayed value is a percent (and the $ or other currency sign if the cell is formatted to show currency). Happy to see you've solved it though.
Regards,
Barry
Doesn't add up.
