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This page describes how do perform Fractional Arithmetic in Excel. For
example, you can use fractional arithmetic to work with feet and inches, allowing you to
enter values as feet.inches
without having to convert inches to decimal portions of feet. The Analysis ToolPak
add-in module, which comes with Excel, provides two functions for doing this:
DOLLARDE and
DOLLARFR. As you might guess from their names, these functions are
intended to be used with financial data, such as stock prices, that are typically
expressed in eighths or sixteenths, rather than in decimal values. However, you can
use the functions to work with any data you need to.
The DOLLARDE and
DOLLARFR
functions are part of the Analysis Tool Pack add-in module. Click
here for more information about using the ATP.
When working with numbers in a fractional form, you will need to
convert from the fractional form into standard decimal form, and then convert the decimal
form back to fractional form. The
DOLLARDE function (dollar-decimal) takes a fractional number, such as feet.inches, and converts it to a standard
decimal value. The DOLLARFR
function (dollar-fraction) takes a decimal value and converts it back to the fractional
form.
We'll use feet and inches as an example. Suppose you're
working with measurements in feet and inches. You can enter these values into
worksheet cells as feet.inches. For example, 10.06 will represent 10 feet, 6 inches, and 10.1 will
represent 10 feet, 10 inches. Note that for values less than 10 inches, you must
include the leading zero in the fractional portion of the number, for example
10.06. If you enter 10.6,
the DOLLARDE function will
interpret this as 10 feet and 60 inches, or 15 feet.
Before you can do anything with the value, you must convert it to a real, decimal
number. This is where the DOLLARDE function comes
in. The syntax for DOLLARDE is:
=DOLLARDE(value,fraction)
where value is the value to convert to decimal, and fraction is the fractional base. For feet and inches, the
fraction would be 12. So if our value of 10.06, or 10 feet and 6 inches, is in cell A1, we'd use the function
=DOLLARDE(A1,12)
This will return the value 10.5. Now, you can use this value whenever you
need to use it in arithmetic, for example in determining an area.
The DOLLARFR function works in the opposite direction
of DOLLARDE. In other words, it converts decimal
values back to fractional representations. For example, it will convert 10.5 back to
10.06. The syntax for DOLLARFR is:
=DOLLARFR(value,fraction)
where value is the value to convert to decimal, and fraction is the fractional base. For feet and inches, the
fraction would be 12. So if our value of 10.5 is in cell A1,
we'd use the function
=DOLLARFR(A1,12)
This will return the value 10.06.
Unfortunately, neither the DOLLARDE nor the
DOLLARFR function accepts arrays. Therefore, you can't use
them in array formulas.
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