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Summing Numbers

1K views 26 replies 5 participants last post by  Zack Barresse 
#1 ·
Hello,

I have a spreadsheet in Excel with two columns. In column A there is data that looks like this:

117484 (100), 117486 (26), 162724 (100), 165982 (21), 39759 (56)

I would like to have the total of all the numbers within the parenthesis added and placed into column B, ignoring the larger numbers outside of the parenthesis. Is that possible?

Thanks for your help!
Nick
 
#4 ·
I would insert a blank column after the combo one that has the two numbers and then use "Text to Columns" from the "Data" to separate the data based upon a space. I then would select the second columns and find all parentheses and replace them with nothing. You can then sum this raw data. There is probably a convoluted set of functions nested within functions to do this as well, but this is what I would do. ;)
 
#6 ·
Hmm, either I'm not following directions correctly or this method doesnt work quite the way I want it to. Sometimes one of these cells can contain a really long stream of this data and if I did it this way I'd have a lot of extra columns. Is this the only way?

Thanks again for your help
 
#7 ·
In your first post, did you mean that 117484 (100), 117486 (26), 162724 (100), 165982 (21), 39759 (56) all appear in the same cell, or are they in in separate cells in the same row or is it more like:
117484 (100)
117486 (26)
162724 (100)
165982 (21)
39759 (56)
???
 
#8 ·
Is "117484 (100), 117486 (26), 162724 (100), 165982 (21), 39759 (56)" one cell?
 
#10 ·
If they are in a column separately as I laid out in the previous post, while Jim's instructions should work, you could - providing the numbers in the parentheses are always 3 digits or less - enter the following formula in column B:
=RIGHT(A1,4)
and then drag the formula down to fill the rest of the column (or double-click on the bottom-right corner and it will fill down)
This would give you the following in column B
=RIGHT(A1,4)
=RIGHT(A2,4)
=RIGHT(A3,4)
=RIGHT(A4,4)
=RIGHT(A5,4)
Copy the column and Paste Special, Values. Now Replace the "(" and the ")" with nothing and you will have a column of numbers which you can then sum.
 
#12 ·
I found this interesting if I could do this with formulas. If there was only one set of numbers in parens, we could do this with one formula..
Code:
=-1*MID(A2,LEN(A2)-MATCH("(",MID(A2,LEN(A2)-ROW(INDIRECT("1:"&LEN(A2))),1),0),1024)
I couldn't do one formula unless a data structure was built. This is of course without VBA, which could be done with one UDF. Structure is as follows...

Data starts in A2.
Select B1:K1
Type this formula in the formula bar...
Code:
={1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10}
Confirm with Ctrl + Shift + Enter (or just enter 1 through 10 in B1:K1)
Select B2:Kn, where n is the last row of data
Enter the following formula...
Code:
=IF(LEN($A2)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE($A2,"(",""))<B$1,"",--MID($A2,1+FIND("~",SUBSTITUTE($A2,"(","~",B$1),1),FIND("~",SUBSTITUTE($A2,")","~",B$1),1)-FIND("~",SUBSTITUTE($A2,"(","~",B$1),1)-1))
Confirm with Ctrl + Enter
Sum as desired.

I had fun with it. :)

HTH
 
#16 ·
Also, one thing I didn't mention, pretty much the only reason I would hesitate to use Text to Columns is that you may not know where the figures to sum would end up, since there are other numbers in between these cell values. This would make it difficult to identify unless you knew for certain, say, that all values to sum were the only two or three digit numbers, or they fell in a specific pattern within these values (i.e. every other value starting with the second set and continuing until the end of the string value). I also wonder how these values got to be where they were and how they got to be in such a format. It leaves a lot of questions unanswered.. :)
 
#17 ·
Sorry for the confusion guys, the data I showed actualy is all in one single cell, not spread out. It looks like this, where each lines data is inside one cell:
_____________________________________________________________
...........................Column A......................................|...Column B......
________________________________________________|____________
228443 (100), 238633 (61), 238842 (100), 239307 (100) | (Total)
________________________________________________|___________
228443 (100), 238633 (61), 238842 (100), 239307 (100) | (Total)
________________________________________________| __________
228443 (100), 238633 (61), 238842 (100), 239307 (100) | (Total)
________________________________________________|___________

The number inside the parenthesis will not be more than 999. I'll try some of the suggestions now and see if they will work for me.

Thanks!
 
#18 ·
Firefytr,

The truth is there is already a total column that totals up everything inside the parenthesis, but that is done some other way outside of excel before I get the data. What I will be doing is stripping out all the data that has a (100) after it, so that

260542 (56), 260596 (100), 260368 (23), 260315 (45), 264015 (100), 259326 (84)

Becomes:

260542 (56), 260368 (23), 260315 (45), 259326 (84)

And then I need what the new totals would be.
 
#19 ·
And is that data staying all in one cell? or broken up into individual cells?
 
#21 ·
This is a bit convoluted, but it works. First, insert 4-5 columns between A and B. Highlight column A and go to Data, Text to Columns, select Delimited, then select comma. Click okay. This will make your data appear in 4 columns, A, B, C, and D, e.g.
228443 (100) | 238633 (61) | 238842 (100) | 239307 (100) |
Using the formula provided by Firefytr earlier, enter this in column E
Code:
=(--MID(A1,FIND("(",A1,1)+1,FIND(")",A1,1)-FIND("(",A1,1)-1)+--MID(B1,FIND("(",B1,1)+1,FIND(")",B1,1)-FIND("(",B1,1)-1)+--MID(C1,FIND("(",C1,1)+1,FIND(")",C1,1)-FIND("(",C1,1)-1)+--MID(D1,FIND("(",D1,1)+1,FIND(")",D1,1)-FIND("(",D1,1)-1))
 
#22 ·
I tried it and it works great, but will that formula work if I have more columns past column E? Some of these cells could go out a lot further after the text to columns step. And not all of them will stop at column E, some will stop at column B and some will stop at column K.

Again, I appreciate all the help.
 
#23 ·
You mean you could have a varying number in a cell? Such as:
228443 (100), 238633 (61), 238842 (100), 239307 (100) - row 1
228443 (100), 238633 (61), 238842 (100), 239307 (100) 228443 (100), 238633 (61), 238842 (100), 239307 (100) - row 2
228443 (100), 238633 (61), 238842 (100), 239307 (100) 228443 (100), 238633 (61) - row 3
?
It will work if you allow for the maximum number of columns needed for doing a text to columns and then add variations on the
(--MID(A1,FIND("(",A1,1)+1,FIND(")",A1,1)-FIND("(",A1,1)-1)
where you add more of this section and change all the "A1" references to "E1", "F1", "G1", etc., as I did for the four column A, B, C, and D.
Tedious however. Maybe firefytr or someone else can come up with a workaround to save the hassle.
Also, it might be easier to do this using code.
 
#24 ·
Still not sure why the formula solution I posted will not work. You say your data would change from XXXXXX to XXX, but the formula setup still stands and should work with whatever data you put into it. Unless I'm missing something. If this is the case, post a sample file of your data of what you're talking about.

@slurpee: +-- is redundant. Just use + . Only use the double unary minus when there is no other mathematical operation, 'plus'ing something is an operation which will force the coercion. :)
 
#26 ·
Thanks for all the help guys, I finnaly gave up on a quick route and solved it by writing a Macro in VBA that takes care of everything I needed to do with the data. Basically it involves moving the values I wanted to add into a separate column and changing the color, then writing a function that adds up the values in a given range based on the color of the text, and calling that function from a formula in the spreadsheet. Had to steal bits of code from here and there but it works!
 
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