On Tuesday, February 20, 2007 8:46 PM [GMT+1=CET],
Walter Hildebrandt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
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.
The difference between the colon and the semicolon is obvious, intuitive and
natural. Colons represent a range; semicolons represent a list.
You can say "SUM(a1;b3;c5;d10;f23)" and get the sum of those 5 cells. If you
say "SUM(a1:f23)" you get the sum of *all* the cells in a rectangular array
of 6x23=138 cells. Six because it's columns a:f and 23 because it's rows
1:23. When you read that, how did you pronounce it in your head? "a to f"
and "1 to 23" I'll bet.
Harold Fuchs
London, England
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