
Perhaps that will help you, Henrik, to be a bit less judgemental. The simplest use of the not equal to sign is in a function made up of two conditions and the not equal to operator: (Condition1<>Condition2) To illustrate this, let’s use cell A1 with the value 2 for Condition1 and cell B1 with the value 3 for Condition2.
My impression when I see a + sign in formulas is that maybe, the user is not so young any longer. According to him, many computer teachers are at the origin of the + sign pandemic. The does not equal or is not equal to sign is an expression of the inequality between two different numbers, variables, integers, or concepts.It is a variation on the equals sign, which is an expression of mathematical equality.The not equals sign can be typed using the following commands: U+2260 2260, Alt+X in Microsoft Windows. Changing his habit is not going to happen over night, and perhaps it will never change. I asked him where he got that from, he answered this is how he was taught, in computer classes more than 40 years ago! He never used Lotus, but he sure was a very early Excel user. He is far from being an expert, and no, Henrik, he is not showing off. I discovered this blog because I was getting into an argument with a friend of mine using the + sign. I don’t know you enough for writing such a broad statement. It is like me saying that Henrik is a very judgemental guy, period. There are some conventions, let’s use them.īut I do agree with Jay that judging Excel users by this simple writing is quite judgmental. It is not logical, even in plain english we say that A equals B, not A pluses B. It just makes the formula more difficult to read.

#Excel formula symbol for does not equal plus
That means, you never need an equal or plus sign on the number pad. In a third cell, you do the calculation with the input values, e.g.

Instead, you set up two cell, each of them having one value. You don’t do calculation with values inside a cell, instead you properly label input cells and link to them. If you following the basic rules of model-building, you either type values directly into the cell (with no calculation).It could confuse other users who don’t know the details about “=+”-sign as you do now.It makes formulas slightly longer and therefore more difficult to read.The additional “+”-sign has no significant impact on the calculation performance.So if your hand is there you don’t have to move over to the letters. The “+”-sign is also located on the number pad like on the image on the right-hand side.Lotus 1-2-3 users don’t have to change their behavior of entering formulas in Excel.The = and + signs on the US keyboard layout.
