HP Forum Archive 17

[ Return to Index | Top of Index ]

OT: Excel strikes again! Message #1 Posted by Rodger Rosenbaum on 26 Sept 2007, 5:38 a.m. Can you believe it? And we complain when a calculator can't get sin(89.99999999) right! http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/09/25/excel-2007-cant-do-math-unless-850-77-1-100-000/

Re: OT: Excel strikes again! Message #2 Posted by Thomas Okken on 26 Sept 2007, 5:50 a.m., in response to message #1 by Rodger Rosenbaum I've read about this -- apparently any calculation that should yield 65535 prints 100000 instead. I haven't been able to reproduce this in Excel 2000; from what I hear the bug was introduced in Excel 2007. I suspect, though, that the bug is not that Excel 2007 calculates the wrong result; it sounds more like it displays the wrong number. Can anyone verify -- i.e. what happens when you calculate 850 * 77.1 + 1 ? - Thomas

Re: OT: Excel strikes again! Message #3 Posted by Namir on 26 Sept 2007, 8:06 a.m., in response to message #2 by Thomas Okken Thomas, My Excel 2007 displays 100001 as the result of 850 * 77.1 + 1. When I remove the ".1", Excel displays 65451. I also tried variations of the bug-causing expression that you mentioned, such as '=5*170*2*(19*2+0.55)+1' and still got 10001. I am less than amused with this bug. Namir Edited: 26 Sept 2007, 8:16 a.m.

Re: OT: Excel strikes again! Message #4 Posted by Giancarlo (Italy) on 26 Sept 2007, 8:26 a.m., in response to message #3 by Namir Hi Namir. Don't wanna keep going at you ;-) but you may want to have a look at this thread: microsoft.public.excel Best regards. Giancarlo

Re: OT: Excel strikes again! Message #5 Posted by Chuck on 26 Sept 2007, 2:29 p.m., in response to message #3 by Namir I just did a few calculations... 77.1 * 850 +1 is not correct, but +2 is. Also, putting 77.1*85 in one cell, and 2 in another, sums to 65537, but replacing with a 1 sums to 1000001. Way strange. However, 5*13107 does give 65535, so it is only for particular equations giving 65535. Hmmmm,

Re: OT: Excel strikes again! Message #6 Posted by Les Wright on 27 Sept 2007, 12:39 a.m., in response to message #3 by Namir I have become a fan of the freeware open source OpenOffice suite. OpenOffice's wordprocessor, spreadsheet, and presentation components look and act a lot like the very expensive Microsoft product. The spreadsheet product in OpenOffice doesn't seem to have this bug. And, in some very unscientific tests of mine, seems to achieve better accuracy in trigonometrics and some special functions than Excel. Sometimes you don't get what you pay for! For folks who want to spend money on software, the Numbers application in Apple iWork '08, whose full price is a mere $79US, doesn't seem to have the MS but. Les

Re: OT: Excel strikes again! Message #7 Posted by Eamonn on 26 Sept 2007, 12:11 p.m., in response to message #2 by Thomas Okken Thomas, Yes, it looks like some kind of display issue. 850 * 77.1 + 1 displays 100001. However, 850 * 77.1 - 1 displays 65534. Best Regards, Eamonn.

[ Return to Index | Top of Index ]

Go back to the main exhibit hall