Skip to Content
Office 2007 Bible
book

Office 2007 Bible

by John Walkenbach, Herb Tyson, Faithe Wempen, Cary N. Prague, Michael R. Groh, Peter G. Aitken, Michael R. Irwin, Gavin Powell, Lisa A. Bucki
June 2007
Intermediate to advanced
1224 pages
35h 32m
English
Wiley
Content preview from Office 2007 Bible

Correcting Common Formula Errors

Sometimes, when you enter a formula, Excel displays a value that begins with a pound sign (#). This is a signal that the formula is returning an error value. You have to correct the formula (or correct a cell that the formula references) to get rid of the error display.

Tip

If the entire cell is filled with pound sign characters, this means that the column isn’t wide enough to display the value. You can either widen the column or change the number format of the cell.

In some cases, Excel won’t even let you enter an erroneous formula. For example, the following formula is missing the closing parenthesis:

=A1*(B1+C2

If you attempt to enter this formula, Excel informs you that you have unmatched parentheses, and it proposes a correction. Often, the proposed correction is accurate, but you can’t count on it.

Table 15-3 lists the types of error values that may appear in a cell that has a formula. Formulas may return an error value if a cell to which they refer has an error value. This is known as the ripple effect—a single error value can make its way into lots of other cells that contain formulas that depend on that one cell.

Table 15-3. Excel Error Values
Error ValueExplanation
#DIV/0!The formula is trying to divide by zero. This also occurs when the formula attempts to divide by what’s in a cell that is empty (that is, by nothing).
#NAME?The formula uses a name that Excel doesn’t recognize. This can happen if you delete a name that’s used in the formula ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

PowerPoint® 2007 Bible

PowerPoint® 2007 Bible

Faithe Wempen
Easy Office 2013

Easy Office 2013

Patrice-Anne Rutledge, Sherry Gunter
Office 2010: The Missing Manual

Office 2010: The Missing Manual

Nancy Conner, Matthew MacDonald
Microsoft® Office 2010 Inside Out

Microsoft® Office 2010 Inside Out

Ed Bott and Carl Siechert

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780470046913Purchase book