I'm using the SUM() function in a Pages table to sum the numbers of a column. For example "=SUM(C1:C14)". Unfortunately, it always returns 0 no matter what arguments I give it. Manually adding cells works fine i.e. "=C1+C2+...+C14". What could be wrong?
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Pages: SUM function in table always returns 0
- Thread starter bigwig
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Bug probably. My advice is to switch to a more stable Excel. Are you using a language other than English then change to a English setting and lots of the bugs go away. This is true. Apple is just bad testing their software. Also if you don't want to buy new then try OpenOffice.org. For real piece of mind I would go Excel any day of the week.
Office is a great choice, unless you're on the iPad, in which case Pages is your only solution for the moment.
Make sure none of your numeric values are strings. Try other functions and see if they also return zero.
Otherwise, that's a strange one. Please reply if you're on a Mac or iPad and which version of the software you're using.
-Aaron-
Make sure none of your numeric values are strings. Try other functions and see if they also return zero.
Otherwise, that's a strange one. Please reply if you're on a Mac or iPad and which version of the software you're using.
-Aaron-
I figured it out, and it's quite odd. I always thought that cell formats were mere presentation matters that didn't change the underlying data. It turns out that Pages copies one of Excel's botches, which is that functions like SUM() return 0 for cells that are formatted as, say, Automatic or Text rather than as Number. That is, a cell is treated as 0 unless the cell is formatted as a Number, even though the cell's actual data is numeric! Interestingly, in Pages once you have change to formatting to Number, SUM() keeps working even if you change the formatting back to Automatic (but not Text).