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Responding to Excel Warnings

Common Excel Warnings

Circular Reference

Formula refers to its own cell — usually a typo in cell references.

#DIV/0!

Dividing by zero or empty. Wrap with IFERROR or check the divisor first.

#REF!

Reference is broken — usually after deleting cells the formula pointed to.

Macro / Trust Warning

Workbook contains macros. Only enable from sources you trust.

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Responding to Excel Warnings

We’ve all seen those little green triangles that appear in the upper left corner of certain worksheet cells – typically cells containing a formula or a function.

When you see one of the triangles, simply click in the cell or cells – you can select a range of cells if you have a contiguous block of cells all containing the triangles – and then click the little yellow “Caution” symbol that appears on the left to see what Excel has to say.

Here, it’s showing the most common of these warnings, and it’s a silly one – Excel is concerned by the fact that the formula isn’t right next to the cells it references. I’ve simply left a blank column – column I – between the Rate column and the total hours for each employee, and Excel finds this confusing.

When I click in any one of the cells – I’ll click in cell J5 – you see my choices include updating the formula to include cells – assuming Excel means cells other than the ones I used, and this would ask Excel to choose cells for me, which is rarely a useful suggestion – or editing the formula manually on the formula bar, getting help, or to ignore the error.

That last one is the winner. Most of the time, a SUM, AVERAGE, or other function that deals with a contiguous range of cells is right next to those cells – at the foot of a column or the end of a row of numbers. And that’s why Excel expects that to be the case all the time. But it’s not always the case, and your worksheet layout will often be different, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

So – I’ll select the whole range that has the triangles appearing – cells J5 through J14 – and then after clicking the yellow Caution symbol, make that choice – Ignore Error—from the pop-up menu. That gets rid of all of the triangles in one fell swoop.

If other people will be using your worksheets, it’s a good idea to resolve those green triangles and choose the Ignore option to get rid of them – it reduces questions and concerns from people who may not understand what you now do!