I am designing a spreadsheet to monitor progress through levels in the English National curriculum. Children are given a level at the end of the year from w, 1c,1b,1a,2c,2b,2a etc up to 5a.

I am trying to convert the text eg "2a" into a value ie 7. I have managed to do this using the IF function however when i get up to a certain number of if statements it seems to stop excepting any more. Is there a limit and if so is there a way around it.

The formula I am using is as shown below.

=IF(S5="w",1,(IF(S5="1c",2,(IF(S5="1b",3,(IF(S5="1a",4,(IF(S5="2c",5,(IF(S5="2b",6,(IF(S5="2a",7,(IF(S5="3c",8,"error")))))))))))))))

I want the formula to continue from where it say "error" to (if(s5="3b",9,(if(S5="3a",10,(if(s5="4c",11,(............ etc, etc

Where it says "error" at the end the sequence should continue all the way to "5a"

I am new to using excel in this way and any help would be much appreciated.