I am a high user of Microsoft Excel.

I have noticed that when I open Excel on a computer in Switzerland in say Italian the formulas that one enters in a cell is nothing like that of the UK; for example =SUM(D14) in UK but something like =SOMME(D1;D4).
I would expect German anf French to also be different.

I would appreciate to know how one changes Excel to understand English formulas if I am working on an Italian Workbook and then possibly to change it back to Italain (or whatever language after).

If you don't know to use support.microsoft.com or google for this, then you may be in some trouble.

workbook.formulalanguage property default is English, you can change it.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ex...447901033.aspx

I don't think it's as easy as finding the right box to tick. I imagine that the formulas come with the language version of the software.

However there is a long-winded cheat. The base language (i.e. visual basic) is always in english. So if you are Excel-savvy then open the VB editor window (or record a macro and then edit it..) and type the formula you want in english, and when it writes it to the cell, it'll be translated.

e.g. you want sum (A1:A3) in cell A4
worksheets(1).range("A4").formula="=Sum(A1:A3)"

When it writes A4 will now say Somme(A1:A3) in French. I used this a lot last year, it's obviously a royal pain in the arse and is just a translator; eventually you get used to the formulas you use often.

Cheers for that.

It is just so annoying because you just automatically write the code in the cell and get crap and you end up writing in freehand a piece a piece of paper a list of the equivalents but once you get to long formulas with lookups and if statments where you use a comma and they use a semicolon etc.

I am so glad that VB and VBA is written in English as I generally write a lock of VB macros. In fact I bet when you were like me and could not write the code; you recorded a macro on a spread sheet and then edited and cut and paced the code into your VB code modules

__________________
I do not have friends..........I have contingent liabilities

Don't get me started on the comma, semicolon thing. Bane. of. my. life!

That is, until i found that those things are actually specified on a windows level rather than in Excel...if you want to make friends, add a bit of code that changes all regional settings on the computer (date, comma, currency, thousand seperators etc) when you open the worksheet, then share the document with all your work mates. Happy days. Finally you can discuss a number and be sure what is a decimal point and what is punctuation!

****! that would be the way, just write and save a new formula for each of your favourites in the language you want....man alive, 18 months too late!

So what are you saying here.
Are you saying write some VB code that on opening the workbook specifies the format of the cells for the dates and number formats so that who ever in whatever langauge reads how it is in their language?

I wrote that yesterday and i'm sure that a few years ago i had something that could do that, as i remember the complaints. Typically i can't find it anywhere now...

But in a nutshell, yes, i think it is possible. Either that, or i'm doing sepia-tinted nostalgic improvement of the past. About Excel. That would be incredibly sad!

I'll try and dig it up later today