Last Friday, we have learned about an interesting formula – IFERROR Formula using which you can easily handle errors in Excel workbooks.
Quite a few people reading that page asked, “Wow, this is good. But how can I take a sheet full of =IF(ISERROR(…)….) formulas and convert them to =IFERROR()”
There is a different set of folks who asked “Wow, this is good. But quite a few of my colleagues use Excel 2003 and they see a bunch of #NAME errors when I send them an excel workbook with IFERROR formulas. Any help?!?”
I am pleased to announce that I wrote 2 simple macros, iferror2iserror() and iserror2iferror() that would scan formulas in a bunch of selected cells and convert them from IFERROR to ISERROR and vice-a-versa. Pretty cool, eh?
Download Excel Macros Workbook
Click here to download the workbook that has macros to convert IFERROR formulas to ISERROR formulas and vice-a-versa.
If you just want to examine the code:
Click here to view the VBA Module code.
What are these macros and how do they work?
The workbook contains 2 macros – iferror2iserror() & iserror2iferror().
What does iferror2iserror() macro do?
As the name suggests, It scans a bunch of selected cells for any IFERROR formulas and then converts them to ISERROR formulas.
For eg. if a cell has =IFERROR(expression, error), the output would be =IF(ISERROR(expression),error,expression)
What does iserror2iferror() macro do?
This macro scans a bunch of selected cells for any ISERROR formulas and then converts them to IFERROR formulas.
For eg. if a cell has =IF(ISERROR(expression),error,expression), the output would be =IFERROR(expression, error)
How to use these macros?
Very simple. Just select the cells with formulas and then run the required macro. The macros only affect cells with either IFERROR or ISERROR formulas.
What are the limitations of these macros?
These macros should hold good for many real life scenarios. That said,
- These macros do not check for IFERROR (or ISERROR) recursively. ie, if a formula has IFERROR inside another IFERROR, only the first one would be converted.
- These macros do not work when you have commas (,) inside the formula in double quotes. For eg. the below formula fails.
=IFERROR(VLOOKUP("Kirk, James",tblStarwars,2,false),"Captain not found"))
Your comments:
How do you convert IFERROR or ISERROR formulas? Do you use a macro or you manually change the formulas? Please share your techniques and ideas using comments.
Also, if you wish to modify the code, please feel free to do so. Share your work with rest of us thru comments so that we can benefit too.
11 Responses to “Fix Incorrect Percentages with this Paste-Special Trick”
I've just taught yesterday to a colleague of mine how to convert amounts in local currency into another by pasting special the ROE.
great thing to know !!!
Chandoo - this is such a great trick and helps save time. If you don't use this shortcut, you have to take can create a formula where =(ref cell /100), copy that all the way down, covert it to a percentage and then copy/paste values to the original column. This does it all much faster. Nice job!
I was just asking peers yesterday if anyone know if an easy way to do this, I've been editing each cell and adding a % manually vs setting the cell to Percentage for months and just finally reached my wits end. What perfect timing! Thanks, great tip!
If it's just appearance you care about, another alternative is to use this custom number format:
0"%"
By adding the percent sign in quotes, it gets treated as text and won't do what you warned about here: "You can not just format the cells to % format either, excel shows 23 as 2300% then."
Dear Jon S. You are the reason I love the internet. 3 year old comments making my life easier.
Thank you.
Here is a quicker protocol.
Enter 10000% into the extra cell, copy this cell, select the range you need to convert to percentages, and use paste special > divide. Since the Paste > All option is selected, it not only divides by 10000% (i.e. 100), it also applies the % format to the cells being pasted on.
@Martin: That is another very good use of Divide / Multiply operations.
@Tony, @Jody: Thank you 🙂
@Jon S: Good one...
@Jon... now why didnt I think of that.. Excellent
Thank You so much. it is really helped me.
Big help...Thanks
Thanks. That really saved me a lot of time!
Is Show Formulas is turned on in the Formula Ribbon, it will stay in decimal form until that is turned off. Drove me batty for an hour until I just figured it out.