I think you will find a detailed discription of the use of the
colon/semi-colon in the userguide at documentation.openoffice.org. The
colon is used to point the beginning and the end of a range, the
semi-colon separates the arguments in a formula. These arguments can be
a cell, a range of cells but also an equasion.
If you want to sum different ranges of cells your formula would look
someting like this:
sum(a1:a3;b10:b20;x1:x1567), giving the total of cells a1 to a3 + b10 to
b20 + x1 to x1567
The semi-colon is also used in a function like Sum.If to separate the
arguments
Sum.if(A1<>12;action if true;action if false)
It's not a weakness of OOo, but a means of getting things done. Even
Excel uses this technique to make complex formulas. You just have to
learn and understand why this is happening. A good way to understand
this is to build your first formulas using the function-wizard. It's
that button with f(x) and the magicstick next to the autosum-button.
Arnold Huzen
Walter Hildebrandt schreef:
Thank you for the help. I have learned that when adding up a column of many
cells with the SUM command, the colon : uses all the cells to get the total
while the semi-colon used just the first and last cells in the column. Whether
the numbers are negative or not does not does not matter. Since the difference
between a colon and a semi-colon can be very confusing, I think this is a
weakness of OOo.
Dan Lewis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On Tuesday February 20 2007 11:13 am,
Walter Hildebrandt wrote:
When there is a negative number in a column of numbers and the SUM
command is used and a ; (semi-colon) is used to separate the two
cells, the total is correct. However, if a : (colon) is used to
separate the two cells, the total is not correct. What is the
different meanings of the semi-colon and the colon when used in the
SUM command?
That is strange. Please give an example of this. My experience is
not the same as yours.
I entered +1, -3, +2 in cells A1 through A3 respectively. I
entered SUM(A1:A3) in A4. The result was 0 as it should be. When I
entered SUM(A1;A3) in A4, the result was 3 When I entered
SUM(A1;A2;A3) in A4, the result was 0.
My conclusion is this. The : (colon) states the entire range to
be added. The ; (semi-colon) allows you to add the individual cells
you list.
If your total is not correct when using the : (colon), then
possibly one or more numbers are formated as text.
Dan
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