CHAPTER 17Making Your Formulas Error-Free
It goes without saying that you want your Excel worksheets to produce accurate results. Unfortunately, it's not always easy to be certain that the results are correct, especially if you deal with large, complex worksheets. This chapter introduces the tools and techniques available to help identify, correct, and prevent errors.
Finding and Correcting Formula Errors
Making a change in a worksheet—even a relatively minor change—may produce a ripple effect that introduces errors in other cells. For example, accidentally entering a value into a cell that previously held a formula is all too easy to do. This simple error can have a major impact on other formulas, and you may not discover the problem until long after you make the change—if you discover the problem at all.
Formula errors tend to fall into one of the following general categories:
- Syntax errors You have a problem with the syntax of a formula. For example, a formula may have mismatched parentheses, or a function may not have the correct number of arguments.
- Logical errors A formula doesn't return an error, but it contains a logical flaw that causes it to return an incorrect result.
- Incorrect reference errors The logic of the formula is correct, but the formula uses an incorrect cell ...
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