Sorry but these posts are incoherent to me.
Sent from Samsung tablet -------- Original message -------- From japples <japp...@europa.com> Date: 04/07/2014 3:18 PM (GMT-06:00) To Brian Barker <b.m.bar...@btinternet.com>,"OO users@openoffice.apache.org" <users@openoffice.apache.org> Subject Re: Calc Formula Question I entered an "IF" formula that produced the error. Statement of fact. Not finding an easy answer in Help (opened under OpenOffice Calc, used "Find" to search the term "#name error" with result "no topics found") - I turned to the message board (can only see messages related to my question / comment) Note: my question was a statement of fact Note: another time the error happened was with a negative number - again, logically that negative number should have been calculated in the IF formula Note: Contents did not contain info re: Calc error Note: I did not have an error 525 displayed so continued searching for the error I received . . . "error 525 #name" may not be the same as "#name" Note: definition is "An identifier could not be evaluated, for example, no valid reference, no valid domain name, no column/row label, no macro, incorrect decimal divider, add-in not found." Note: The IF Formula I was trying to use worked in Excel, Quatto, and Lotus - just had a bit of adjustment changing to Calc - is this the point you assumed I overlooked? Now for the definition in Calc help: Identifier - refers to what?; had a valid reference, did not require a domain name, had valid column / row labels, no macro with except of IF function were involved, no division was requested, no add-in other than the sum in referenced cells. When I use Help, I expect an intuitive document designed for the casual / new user. Does that help clarify why I didn't find the error number (which I did not receive) and you so kindly pointed out? No worries . . . I figured it out. Jack Brian Barker wrote: > At 10:25 07/04/2014 -0700, you wrote: >> One of the cells included in the formula = 0; Logically, if a cell >> is 0, the formula would over look it. > That's certainly untrue! Zero is a perfectly valid value, of course, > and different formulae will handle zero values in appropriate ways - > which may include throwing an error. And it's worth knowing that an > empty cell, a cell with a zero value in it, and a cell with one or > more blank characters in it (which will *look* empty) may all be > handled differently. > > But no, in any case, you are missing the point: you will not get the > #NAME? error simply from something such as a zero value addressed in a > formula. This error occurs only if there is a name that cannot be > resolved. You must either have typed nonsense or - as I said before- > probably mistyped something. You could have misspelled the name of a > sheet or range or function, or you could perhaps have confused the > syntax of an expression and left what looks to Calc like an unknown > name. You wouldn't get this error merely from a zero argument. > >> I did not find a reference in Help. > > If I open the Help from within Calc, the second main entry in the > Index list is "#NAME error message"! If you look up "error", you will > quickly get to "error codes;list of", and you will see that error 525 > is represented not as "Err:525" but as "#NAME?". You will see there > that it's all about identifiers, not zero values. > > Brian Barker > >