PROBLEM WITH MULTIPLICATION FORMULA

[benlenton]

Hi there

I have a problem with a simple multiplication formula which is not functioning.

In one cell (e.g. B1) I insert a figure e.g. 5000
In the other cell (e.g. B2) I insert a multiplier e.g. 20% or 0.2
In the third cell I insert the formula as follows:

=B1*B2

when the result should be 1000, it is returning as zero. I can't work out why because on all other sheets I am working on there is no problem at all with this formula.

Does anyone know the reason for this?

Thanks

Ben

[Villeroy]

Your number format locale of the "0.2" value is set to "Default" which defaults to the application-wide number locale in the language options, which itself defaults to the language and country of your operating system. The program can not read your mind. The OS locale is the only way to get a hint about the local context you are using for your numbers.
Let's say, your locale is French, German, Swedish or something, then "0.2" is text rather than a number, but "0,2" is numeric.

If this is not the reason, then you enforced any one of the involved numbers to be text. Ususally this happens on import if the source data are explicitly declared as text or with messed up Excel files where recent versions of Excel try to evaluate numeric text values (which may yield wrong values at times).
Ctrl+F8 shows numbers in blue font, text in black.
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[benlenton]

Great, thanks very much for the explanation. I have sorted it now (I think!).

Ben