treating text as formula

[riskassure]

Hi,

I have the following problem: in cell A1, I typed "B1+B2". In cell A2, I want to convert the text in A1 into a formula and then calculate that formula.

So if B1 = 5 and B2 = 6, A2 should read 11, and if B1 = 3 and B2 = -1, A2 should return 2.

Of course, I could have just use the formula '=B1+B2' in A2 and get a direct answer. But what I really want to do is much more complicated than the simple example I gave above.

Question: is there a way to do this without resorting to VBA? I tried putting

=Indirect(A1)

But that failed.. and gave me a ref# error.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

~~CW~~

 

[SkipVought]

Hi,

Check out GlennUK's solution in thread68-1538709.

Skip,
[sup]Don't let the Diatribe...
talk you to death![/sup][sub]
Just traded in my old subtlety...
for a NUANCE![/sub]

 

[riskassure]

Thanks! In the post, it mentioned a function called Evaluate, which is not available in Excel 2003, so what I ended up doing is to create a user defined function called Eval:

Function Eval(x as string)

Eval = Application.Evaluate(x)

End Function

And this works just as well!

~~CW~~

 

[Stella740pl]

riskassure

It is definitely available in Excel 2003 - if you use it as it is described in that thread - through defining a name, and not directly in the cell.

But using a UDF is another way of doing it.