Friday, March 04, 2005

How do you make Excel show the difference between two selected cells

I was asked this very interesting question a couple of days ago.
I have to admit I am stumped. I have also wondered this for many years and I have never found a way to do it. Of course you can subtract one cell from another but often I will have two cells on a spreadsheet with values in them that I am trying to reconcile. If they do not balance then I want to know how much I am out, or the difference between the two cells values.
If one is a negative and one a positive number then selecting them and using the sum in the status bar will give you a result.

The task - determine the difference between two positive numbers in selected cells.
Do any of you readers know how to do this? UDF's (User Defined Functions) are an acceptable solution.