Having trouble with something really simple - In (say) A1 I have 100, I want to add 20% to it and display 120 in the next cell - I have always done =A1*20% and that has always worked, since updating that returns 100.20.
Any help would be much appreciated.
try it with =A1*1,2
There is a problem here.
must give 20.
probably meant +20%
But this will not add 20% of A1, but of 100%; in other words, A1 + 0.2 (of 1).
Cf Percentage Bug Found
Possibly misunderstandings based on a mix-up of spreadsheet formulas with usage of pocket calculators?
The term "percentage"itself is a kind of bug. There are ratios and rates. All the rest is formatting. Formats are no information.
An actual bug in Calc is, that a cell once automatically formatted to “percent” will no longer reasonably process an entry like 17%. It creates a string with “%%” at the end. If you enter 17, however, this is interpreted as 17% then. Funny! Good reasons???
Who teaches math so badly that such behaviour is accepted?