adding range and subtracting from another range?

[lezawang]

Hi I got 300 when I tried this:

A1 = 300, A2 = 200, A3= 100

=SUM(A1:A2-(A3))

Why 300? putting A3 between () or not, wont change anything.

Second question please, how you would write a function or formula to do this ( I want to know the best practice)

Adding range A1:A3 with B1:B5 and subtract the result from C1:C4

I was thinking like this = sum(A1:A3,B1:B5) - sum(C1:C4)

Is that the best way?

Thank you very much.

 

[steve the fish]

Because you are summing this:

A1-A3 and A2-A3

so 200 + 100. Im not quite sure what you mean by the 2nd bit. If you need to subtract the result from the sum of C1:C4 then that needs to come first.

 

[offthelip]

I would use:

=SUM(SUM(A1:A3),SUM(B1:B5)-SUM(C1:C4))

 

[Fluff]

If you want to subtract C1:C4 from the sum of the other cells

=SUM(A1:A3,B1:B5,-C1:C4)

or to subtract A & B from C

=SUM(-A1:A3,-B1:B5,C1:C4)