VBA - determine if a formula refers to a text-only cell

excelstarter1

Board Regular
Joined
Jul 20, 2017
Messages
81
Hey guys,

I have an issue which I am not yet able to solve. Hope you can help out:

Well I have a macro which I use to format text/tables in Excel. When I have text in a cell I want Horizontal Alignment = Left, if it is a value or a formula (with calculation, showing a value as a result), I want Horizontal Alignment = Right.

Now the issue is, I often use a formula, simply +A1 or =A1 etc. (cell reference) to get the label/caption (text only) for all the items in my table. Is there a way to determine if a formula refers to a cell which only contains text? And if the cell only contains text, I want the marco to align the cell containing the formula left (Horizontal Alignment = Left).

Thanks in advance!

Regards
 

Excel Facts

Format cells as time
Select range and press Ctrl+Shift+2 to format cells as time. (Shift 2 is the @ sign).
Is this the sort of thing you mean?
Rich (BB code):
If IsNumeric(cell.Value) Then
  cell.HorizontalAlignment = xlRight
Else
  cell.HorizontalAlignment = xlLeft
End If
 
Upvote 0
Hi Peter thanks for the quick reply!

Unfortunately I dont get your code running...

Does cell.Value detect if a cell is a value or string/text? The reason I ask is the following:

I use a formula in cell A2 und B2 to determine the content in the cell. In the case of cell A2 (with formula =A1) I get a value. In the other case B2 (with formula =B1) I get a text in return. In the first case I want the marco to format the cell to the right, in the second case with the text, I want to macro to format the cell to the left (as text is displayed).

Do you have an approach for this issue? I hope my explanation was not too confusin... Sorry


A
B
1
300
Text
2
=A1 (i.e. 300)
=B1 (i.e. Text)

<tbody>
</tbody>
 
Upvote 0
Greetings,

At least for me, presuming you keep the cells' alignment as General, the cells do align as described dependent upon the return of the formula (that is, if the formula returns text, then the cell naturally left-aligns, vs. if the return is numeric, the cell right-aligns).

Sheet1
AB
1Some long header valueSome long header value
2300Some text
3300Some text

<thead>
</thead><tbody>
</tbody>
Excel 2010

Worksheet Formulas
CellFormula
A3=A2
B3=B2

<thead>
</thead><tbody>
</tbody>

<tbody>
</tbody>

Is that not what you mean?

Mark
 
Upvote 0
Is this the sort of thing you mean?
Rich (BB code):
If IsNumeric(cell.Value) Then
  cell.HorizontalAlignment = xlRight
Else
  cell.HorizontalAlignment = xlLeft
End If
From a previous (old, old, old) post of mine...

I usually try and steer people away from using IsNumeric to "proof" supposedly numeric text. Consider this (also see note below):

Rich (BB code):
ReturnValue = IsNumeric("($1,23,,3.4,,,5,,E67$)")

Most people would not expect THAT to return True. IsNumeric has some "flaws" in what it considers a proper number and what most programmers are looking for.

I had a short tip published by Pinnacle Publishing in their Visual Basic Developer magazine that covered some of these flaws. Originally, the tip was free to view but is now viewable only by subscribers.. Basically, it said that IsNumeric returned True for things like -- currency symbols being located in front or in back of the number as shown in my example (also applies to plus, minus and blanks too); numbers surrounded by parentheses as shown in my example (some people use these to mark negative numbers); numbers containing any number of commas before a decimal point as shown in my example; numbers in scientific notation (a number followed by an upper or lower case "D" or "E", followed by a number equal to or less than 307 -- the maximum power of 10 in VB); and Octal/Hexadecimal numbers (&H for Hexadecimal, &O or just & in front of the number for Octal).

NOTE:
======
In the above example and in the referenced tip, I refer to $ signs and commas and dots -- these were meant to refer to your currency, thousands separator and decimal point symbols as defined in your local settings -- substitute your local regional symbols for these if appropriate.

As for your question about checking numbers, here are two functions that I have posted in the past for similar questions..... one is for digits only and the other is for "regular" numbers (the code is simple enough that it can be pulled from the function "housing" and used directly inside your own code):

Rich (BB code):
Function IsDigitsOnly(Value As String) As Boolean IsDigitsOnly = Len(Value) > 0 And Not Value Like "*[!0-9]*" End Function Function IsNumber(ByVal Value As String) As Boolean ' Leave the next statement out if you don't ' want to provide for plus/minus signs If Value Like "[+-]*" Then Value = Mid$(Value, 2) IsNumber = Not Value Like "*[!0-9.]*" And Not Value Like "*.*.*" And Len(Value) > 0 And Value <> "." End Function

Here are revisions to the above functions that deal with the local settings for decimal points (and thousand's separators) that are different than used in the US (this code works in the US too, of course).

Rich (BB code):
Function IsNumber(ByVal Value As String) As Boolean Dim DP As String ' Get local setting for decimal point DP = Format$(0, ".") ' Leave the next statement out if you don't ' want to provide for plus/minus signs If Value Like "[+-]*" Then Value = Mid$(Value, 2) IsNumber = Not Value Like "*[!0-9" & DP & "]*" And Not Value Like "*" & _ DP & "*" & DP & "*" And Len(Value) > 0 And Value <> DP End Function

I'm not as concerned by the rejection of entries that include one or more thousand's separators, but we can handle this if we don't insist on the thousand's separator being located in the correct positions (in other words, we'll allow the user to include them for their own purposes... we'll just tolerate their presence).

Rich (BB code):
Function IsNumber(ByVal Value As String) As Boolean Dim DP As String Dim TS As String ' Get local setting for decimal point DP = Format$(0, ".") ' Get local setting for thousand's separator ' and eliminate them. Remove the next two lines ' if you don't want your users being able to ' type in the thousands separator at all. TS = Mid$(Format$(1000, "#,###"), 2, 1) Value = Replace$(Value, TS, "") ' Leave the next statement out if you don't ' want to provide for plus/minus signs If Value Like "[+-]*" Then Value = Mid$(Value, 2) IsNumber = Not Value Like "*[!0-9" & DP & "]*" And Not Value Like "*" & _ DP & "*" & DP & "*" And Len(Value) > 0 And Value <> DP End Function
 
Last edited:
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