Very simple IF formula

Hi, I’m trying to create a very simple IF formula, but keep getting back the #Unparseable error. I know that error is for syntax, so since it’s such a simple formula, I copy/pasted the formula from the IF FUNCTION section from Help & Learning and changed the name of the column and it worked. HOWEVER if I tried to change the text for the if true and if false values, it no longer works. I didn’t change anything except what word to return, only selected the letters and not the quotation marks, but I keep getting the #Unparseable. I kept fiddling and the other strange thing is I can get it to work with difference text but only if I only use lowercase letters. Any capital letters and I get the error again.

I’m on a Mac and Mac keyboard, does that make a difference because I also tried changing the column properties to symbol and putting in “Red” and “Green” instead of text, and that doesn’t work either.

=IF([Status]1 = "Red", "At Risk", "On Time”) is the formula from the Help & Learning section which I changed to:

=IF(Overdue@row >0, "At Risk", "On Time") and everything works dandy. But if I change to:

=IF(Overdue@row >0, “Late", "On Time”) I get the error again. But if I change to:

=IF(Overdue@row >0, “late", "On Time”) then it works again.

Screen Shot 2021-11-18 at 2.48.01 PM.png

Screen Shot 2021-11-18 at 2.58.09 PM.png

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Accepted answers

mmorales

Thanks again, Paul. I see what you’re saying. Copy/pasting from your answer did work! I looked up how to disable the smart quotes and you can on a Mac, so I did that. It didn’t work right away, I may have to re-start, but fiddled around a bit and realized that if I do get a curly quote, I can delete it and re-type it and the second time it comes out regular.

Thank you! I learned a lot!

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Paul Newcome

It is your quotes. See how some are slanted? Those are called "smart quotes" which (ironically enough) Smartsheet does not recognize. Try retyping the formula directly into the cell, here in the Community, or in a text editor such as Notepad (not Word).

mmorales

Thanks, Paul! I tried all three ways you suggested and they all come out unparseable. Also, the smart quotes wouldn’t explain why the lowercase works and the upper case does not. I think that’s the weirdest part to me.

Thanks for taking a look at my question!

Paul Newcome

If you look at your two screenshots, the one in lowercase does not have smart quotes but the one in uppercase does (the one before "Late"). That would be why one worked and the other did not.

Try copy/pasting this. If you need to change the text, do not change the quotes.

=IF(Overdue@row > 0, "Late", "On Time")

mmorales

Thank you! I learned a lot!

Paul Newcome

Happy to help. 👍️

I didn't realize it was a "built in" thing on Macs. I am a PC user, so it just pulls whatever the program's default is. So typing here defaults to the straight quotes, but when I type in a Word doc it defaults to the "smart quotes".

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