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EXCEL 2010 Quirk Copy Paste

Terry Brown

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Posted Yesterday at 5:20PM

Using Excel 2010, I noticed what I can only call a 'Quirk'

Try this:Enter

Cell a1 enter 5

Cell a2 enter 6

Cell a3 enter 7

Cell a4 enter calculation =sum(a1:c1) and you will get 18, which is correct.

Now copy the contents of cell a4 to cell a5 and you get 31, as the formula has changed to =sum(b1:d1).

The same applies if you do =a1+a2+a3.

Is there a way to stop this apart from using absolutes?.

Terry

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Woolwell

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Posted Yesterday at 5:42PM

Shouldn't cell A4 be sum(a1:a3)? Sum (a1:c1) if there is nothing in columns b and c should result in 5.

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Woolwell

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Posted Yesterday at 5:49PM

Absolutes are for this sort of thing.

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Simsy

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Posted Yesterday at 7:34PM

What you can do is;

Instead of copying the cell itself, select the cell you want to copy, and select and copy the contents of the formula bar. You can then paste this to a different cell and the contents wont have changes, becasue what you have actually copied is a line of text, not a cell.

Regards,

Simsy

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Terry Brown

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Posted Today at 9:54AM

The only way I found it was developing a small accounting program, I decided to leave a cell space between the data entered and the calculation to make it clearer,so I cut and pasted the calculations to the right by one cell, and noticed the diference.

I have now sorted the problem by inserting a blank row between the data and the calculation, however it would be very easy to make an error this way without realising what had happened.

Terry

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