If Excel can't properly calculate a formula that you enter in a cell, the program displays an error value in the cell as soon as you complete the formula entry. Excel uses several error values, all of which begin with the number sign (#).
Table 1 shows you the error values in Excel along with the meaning and the most probable cause for its display. To remove an error value from a cell, you must discover what caused the value to appear and then edit the formula so that Excel can complete the desired calculation.
Error Value
| Meaning
| Causes
|
#DIV/0
| Division by zero
| The division operation in your formula refers to a cell that contains the value 0 or is blank.
|
#N/A
| No value available
| Technically, this is not an error value but a special value that you can manually enter into a cell to indicate that you don't yet have a necessary value.
|
#NAME?
| Excel doesn't recognize a name
| This error value appears when you incorrectly type the range name, refer to a deleted range name, or forget to put quotation marks around a text string in a formula (causing Excel to think that you're referring to a range name).
|
#NULL!
| You specified an intersection of two ranges whose cells don't actually intersect
| Because the space is the intersection operator, this error occurs if you insert a space instead of a comma (the union operator) between ranges used in function arguments.
|
#NUM!
| Problem with a number in the formula
| This error can be caused by an invalid argument in an Excel function or a formula that produces a number too large or too small to be represented in the worksheet.
|
#REF!
| Invalid cell reference
| This error occurs when you delete a cell referred to in the formula or if you paste cells over the ones referred to in the formula.
|
#VALUE!
| Wrong type of argument in a function or wrong type of operator
| This error is most often the result of specifying a mathematical operation with one or more cells that contain text.
|
