[Year 12 IT Apps] Bad, Excel. Bad!

[Alex Hopkins]

Hi Mark,

Excel's ability to "help" those of us who do not ask for it is weird and
troublesome.  Had you not brought my attention to this particular example, I
wonder whether I'd ever have noticed it.  Pity help those who enter data and
don't notice what Excel does to "correct" us.  Similar with the flagging of
"errors" to formulas because it doesn't like different formulas in adjacent
cells, at times.

In this instance, the way to handle this "help" is to use the Tools >
Options menu path, then on the edit tab, clear the "Extend data range
formats and formulas" check box.

Dr Alex Hopkins
Bayside Christian College

-----Original Message-----
From: itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au]
On Behalf Of Mark Kelly
Sent: Monday, 15 October 2007 2:50 PM
To: Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: [Year 12 IT Apps] Bad, Excel. Bad!

A curious problem with Excel.  Please play with the attached file.

It seems Excel thinks it knows better than I do about what formulas 
should be, and I can't work how how to stop it.  Something to do with 
its 'advanced formula error' fixing, I guess.  Very annoying!

To try it out, just put "1" into each of the shaded cells and watch what 
happens to the formula for the total of section A!

Any ideas for fixes?

TIA
Mark

-- 
Mark Kelly
Manager - Information Systems
McKinnon Secondary College
McKinnon Rd McKinnon 3204, Victoria, Australia
Direct line / Voicemail: 8520 9085
School Phone +613 8520 9000
School Fax +613 95789253
kel AT mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au

Webmaster - http://www.mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au
IT Lecture notes: http://vceit.com
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You'll know when we are officially a civilised race: our schools have 
all the money they need and the Air Force has to run a chook raffle to 
buy a new bomber.
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