# Microsoft Office Application Help - Excel Help forum > Excel General >  > [SOLVED] Basic SUM function not working

## gaudiumpenrith

I'm having a weird issue if anyone can help, I have a spreadsheet with various rows of data and at the end of each one I want to add a total column. (Sounds simple enough, and probably the first thing anyone learns on excel) 

I'm using the basic =SUM(_select row cells_) and I'm getting 0 in the cell when there are clearly numbers to add up. It is also displaying a blue arrow, I have been into the formulas tab and selected remove arrows but whether it's there or not (although I have never had one show up before) the 'total' column SUM cells are just refusing to change from zero. If I retry the blue arrow reappears again no matter how many times I select remove arrows.

I have never encountered this before and feel a bit silly asking for help on such a basic function but as it's so basic I'm struggling to find an alternate way to just add up the values in the cells.

I'm using Excel 2007.

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## sktneer

It seems that the cells you are trying to sum are formatted as Text. They may look like numbers but in reality they are being treated as Text not numbers.

Copy a blank cells (without any cell content in it) --> Select the cells you were trying to Sum --> Right click on one of the selected cell -> Choose Paste Special --> Select Add and click OK.
Your Sum formula will return the correct output then.

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## gaudiumpenrith

Thanks for trying but for some reason still not working. The cells were formatted to general, I have now tried with them in number, accounting, currency, general and text and tried your method with each one and nothing, still showing zero.

It's really got me scratching my head!

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## sktneer

Use a formula to test whether the cell content is a number.

Say one of your cells in the range is A2, try a formula in another cell =ISNUMBER(A2). What do you get, True or False?

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## AlKey

You may try something like this

Assuming your range is A2:A10

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## MrShorty

> It is also displaying a blue arrow, I have been into the formulas tab and selected remove arrows but whether it's there or not (although I have never had one show up before) the 'total' column SUM cells are just refusing to change from zero. If I retry the blue arrow reappears again no matter how many times I select remove arrows.



 The only reason that I know of for Excel to automatically display those arrows is if there is a circular reference present. Excel often displays 0 or some other non-answer for circular references, because it does not know how to resolve the circular logic.

Assuming you have the status bar visible, look in the lower left corner of the Excel window and look for a "circular:_reference_". If you have this circular reference notification, look through your spreadsheet (since it seems related to this =SUM() function, that might be as good a place as any to start), and see if you can figure out where your logic is going in circles and what you need to change so it is no longer circular.

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## gaudiumpenrith

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the different advice, numbers was coming up TRUE but I'd missed a circular reference with having a range of a full column that had one of the numbers to total in it. Cheers for the help back up and running now

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