Excel won't subtract

[Cortney]

Hello,

I need help! I've looked everywhere and have not found a resolution. I have 2 columns -- I need to simply subtract them. Easy right? HA!

No matter how I do the formula =C2-B2 or =SUM(C2-B2) the cell shows #VALUE :: there are no problems with text or anything. These are 2 columns with numbers only and I even formatted both to be number with 0 decimals and no commas...no such luck...

I even ran detect / repair office and had same problems afterwards.

I'm using Excel 2003 on Win XPPro SP2

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[MrShorty]

Where are the values in C2 and B2 coming from? Those formulas should work.

If you open a new spreadsheet and hand enter two numbers then those functions, what do you get?

[Cortney]

Hey,

They're from various data that I have pulled together manually or via c/p into this doc. Interestingly though I hand entered those in a new worksheet as you said and it did work. Now....how to fix the huge worksheet w/o needing to retype all of that! :X

Also - how can I edit the forumla to show a neg number is column 2 is larger than col 1 and I'm subtracting 2-1? (I know...that can be later when the data is properly working)

Thanks

[Cortney]

I FIGURED IT OUT! and omg I am sooo sorry!! I have been seriously exhausted and this totally slipped by me -- the second column had spaces on both sides of the numbers -- they were in a small font, so it wasn't apparent.

Please please forgive this new user, ok?

Now on to the neg part of my forumla... how?

[Clauddvon]

Make sure that the numbers are actually being read as numbers and not something foreign to the calculation of that particular subtraction function.

Right click one of the problem numbers, select format cells, go to the number tab and make sure that one of the number oriented categories is highlighted (general, number, currently, accounting) for instance.

[Cortney]

All is working now! Thanks everyone. I am just getting back into Excel and I know that it can be a HUGE help to me in my work, so expect to see me peeking in and out around here. If that's ok?