Excel – sum the contents of multiple alphanumeric cells

microsoft excel

I have searched high and low and can't find a simple solution for this. Hopefully it exists.

I have 3 random cells that contain alphanumeric strings. Eg: A3="1L" and B12="2R" and H5="3T" etc. etc. Note: These cells are not in a range, they are random.

Is there a formula in excel that can sum the numeric values of these 3 cells? ie. arrive at a sum or 6 for these cells.

Appreciate the help,

Thanks,
Sean.

Best Answer

You could try this formula:

=SUM(IFERROR(LEFT(A1:J10,LEN(A1:J10)-1),0)*1)

Adjust the range as necessary.

This will blanket a whole range, remove the last character of each, then add them together.

If you really have only L or R but can have bare numbers like 10, then you could use this instead:

=SUM(IFERROR(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A1:J10,"R",""),"L","")*1,0))

NOTE: Both of the above formulae should be called with Ctrl+Shift+Enter after having input them in a cell since they are array formulae.

EDIT: To get alternate columns, you can use this:

=SUM(IFERROR(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE($C4:$R4,"R",""),"L","")*{1,0,1,0,1,0,1,0,1,0,1,0,1,0,1,0},0))

Again, you need to use Ctrl+Shift+Enter for it to work properly.

For the next column (the ones that should be installed), you simply change the order of the 1's and 0's:

=SUM(IFERROR(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE($C4:$R4,"R",""),"L","")*{0,1,0,1,0,1,0,1,0,1,0,1,0,1,0,1},0))

Notice that there is a number for each of the cells within the range (C4:R4 has 16 cells, therefore there are 8 1's and 8 0's)

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