I am using Excel 2008 for Mac to do basic accounting and book keeping. BUT my Au

Question

I am using Excel 2008 for Mac to do basic accounting and book keeping. BUT my Auto sum function does not Auto sum.

It either gives me an option to =SUM()
and when I fill in the cells to sum I get 0,00 as an answer.

If I set up a new worksheet to test the auto sum function it does work.
So some where in the setup of my workbook/sheet I have formulated or done something to disenable the Auto Sum function.

I have tried copyuing the formaat from previous worksheets, but this does not help.
I have set the Excel preferencees.> calculate to Automatic , but this does not help either.

If someone has had similar problems and could guide me... I'd really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Explanation / Answer

As for the display of the zeroes, one option is go to Excel> Preferences> View then clear the check box for Show zero values. This applies to only the current sheet, but be aware that all cells containing literal zeroes or containing calculations resulting in a zero value result will be displayed as empty cells. This can be very much of a problem. There are other possible approaches, but IMO the best option is to simply not enter zero values in the first place - just leave those cells empty.

I can't be certain, but I believe the cause of all the issues you're having may be the use of Copy/Paste for entering your data. The result you get is often determined by the nature of the source you copy from. If it's presented to the Clipboard as Text when copied that's how it gets pasted. If copying is necessaersry you might see what options are available from Edit> Paste Special rather than using the standard Paste command. Depending on the source of the data I'd also explore other options for getting it into my sheet in order to avoid copy/paste altogether.

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