ps: You can also use a similar method to get data from another source, be it a spreadsheet link, web link or what have you. Rather than just enter an equal sign and the link location, you could (should) have an alternative entry in case the data is not what you expected. It's hard to add 14.7 + "Washington, DC".

For example, say you have a spreadsheet that goes out to Yahoo! and gets a stock price. The data location is something like "http://yahoo.com/Prices/Ticker=$A$2"

Rather than just entering the formula

=http://yahoo.com/Prices/Ticker=$A$2

This messaging format will enter the above as a link in my post here, so we have to name the link to show you the format. It will NOT read correctly otherwise.

So let's just call the link location "YAHOO.DAT"

You enter an alternative in case the answer comes back as text, blank or something unexpected (and unlikely unacceptable to following mathematical formulae) such as the following:

=IF(ISNUMBER(YAHOO.DAT,YAHOO.DAT,NULL))

where "NULL" is your chosen entry for inappropriate or incomplete data. If you do that with ALL formulae cells, your spreadsheet will never be full of errors and will always look stable and complete, even before all required entries are made.

My apologies if this is overkill, it's just been so handy for me I had to share. :)

Dan, former coder