Formula help...

Loann McGee

I've tried a formula that seems to work, in that it doesn't give me the lovely "Unparseable" or "Missing Operator" message.

Here's the scenario:
If Column A (text column) contains "These words" then Column D (date column) = Column B (date column).

Column A does contains the needed words, and Column B is a date. But Column D isn't populating the date - it's just blank. 

Is Column D not allowed to be a Date column type? I need it to be, but having this formula would reduce the chances of someone forgetting to populate the date into both columns. I have to have the "These words" qualifier.

Blessings,

Loann

Loann McGee

Here's how my formula looks:

=IF([Column A)]1 = "These words", [Column D]1)

J. Craig Williams

Based on your description, isn't this (in Column D) what you want?

 

=IF([Column A)]1 = "These words", [Column B]1)

 

In Column D, this will set D to B if A matches your text.

Column D is where the calc is.

 

Hope that helps.

Craig

Loann McGee

Craig,

I looked at my formula again, and I believe that's what I actually have.

Real life formula is this: 

=IF([Title (Book or Broadcast Title; note HC's)]202 = "Pre-tape", [Taping Date]202)

 

If our Title column has the words "pre-tape" then I want the Pre-tape date column (column d in above scenario) to equal that of the Taping Date column (Column B from scenario),

 

But it's not populating the date from one date column to another date column.

 

 

J. Craig Williams

Ah.

Two problems.

 

1. You are using an exact match "="

2. If you wanted an exact match, it is case sensitive "Pre-Tape" is not equal to "Pre-tape"

 

Try this:

=IF(Find("Pre-Tape",[Title (Book or Broadcast Title; note HC's)]202)>0, [Taping Date]202)

 

In case I typed that wrong, here's the psuedo code

=IF(FIND("text to find", cell) > 0, "gotit")

 

Craig

J. Craig Williams

And watch out of #2.

 

You can get rid of some errors by

 

FIND("pre-tape",LOWER(cell))

 

but that won't catch things like "PreTape" or other misspellings.

 

Craig

 

 

Loann McGee

It's working! I used the "Find" option, Craig. Thank you so much.